I stretched contentedly and then slipped my sweater over my head and looked
down at Sian
who was lying on the bed, his lean well muscled torso glistening with sweat. I
could still imagine the salty taste of it. He grinned at me, revealing strong
white teeth.
“George doesn’t know how lucky he is to have you in his bed every night,
Joanne, no wonder he looks knackered every morning!”
If only you knew, I thought, once a month if I’m lucky, George is always to
tired nowadays. Not like he used to be when we were first married, twenty five
years ago.
Sighing I smiled down at my lover of the past six months, “Look I’ve got to
go, but I’ll ring you later Sian!” and leaving his flat I tried to put the fact
that he was only twenty six, and just two years older than my daughter Jessica,
out of my mind.
George’s car was already in the drive when I reached home, an unusual event
as he usually worked late every night at the garage. I tried to fight down the
feeling of rising irritation as I imagined him asking me to pay off yet another
pressing debt. That garage of his had been a disaster from the start, he’d had
one problem after another and if it wasn’t for my flourishing Country Meat Pie
business he’d have gone under years ago.
I let myself in and frowned, George was talking to someone on the
telephone.
“....I’m going to have to take drastic measures, I’ll take her to the
cleaners!”
I swear I almost had a heart attack, George knew about me and Sian!
I don’t know how I found the strength
to go out of the kitchen and climb the stairs to our bedroom. This would finish
me in this town, I’d be a joke! I could see my former friends in my mind’s eye,
laughing together and joking about Joanne and her toy-boy.
George would demand half the business, half of my business! Everything I’d
worked for, including the new Judd’s Pubs contract, would be taken away from me,
it was a nightmare!
“Unless you stop him!” the voice just came into my head from nowhere, Stop
him, but how?
George was in the lounge reading a newspaper when I walked in and he
actually had the nerve to look pleased to see me, the hypocrite, oh how I hated
his smug pug self satisfied smile.
“I thought that I’d finish early and spent some time with you, perhaps take
you out for a meal.” he said. But I could see right through him, he was trying
to get me nice and relaxed and then tell me that he knew about my affair with
Sian.
Well I had plans of my own for George and it didn’t include making him rich!
“What a lovely surprise!” I said beaming at him, “You go and get ready
while I have a coffee,. Oh and we’ll have to call in at Country Meat pies on the
way, I forgot to post the weekend duty roster.”
“Oh, all right love, I’ll go and take that bath.” George said.
We pulled into the car park of the factory unit that was now Country
Meat Pies and I unlocked, deactivated the alarm and led him inside. He whistled
in surprise as he saw how much bigger the plant had grown and showed a
mechanic’s interest in the machinery that I’d had installed.
The mincer could take a whole side of frozen beef and I knew that he’d
want to take a closer look at it and led him up onto the walkway so that he
could look down into it. The mincer was actually in three sections, a hopper a
meat flayer and finally the mincing blades. Once the beef was in the hopper and
the power was turned on, the hopper revolved a high speed throwing the meat onto
the small round revolving blades that stripped the flesh from the bones. The
bones were removed and then the flesh was then lowered into the next chamber and
a hydraulic arm pushed a stainless steel plate onto the flesh forcing it through
the holes in the mincing plates
My handbag slipped out of my hand and fell with a clatter into the
empty hopper and I tried to hook it out with some tongs that were used to remove
the bones.
“Hold on a second Jo, I’ll get it for you.” George said and lowered
himself into the hopper. His screams didn’t last very long at all. I didn’t look
until the hopper had stopped to allow the removal of the bones and the
pulveriser took care of them
The crushed remnants went into the canal at the rear of the unit. My
handbag was ruined and it took a time to remove his teeth and clothing from the
mince, although I found his rings and watch almost straight away. George made
almost three dozen individual Country Meat Pies which I packed for ready for
delivery. At 2am it was all over and humming the same tune that George had, I
went home to bed..
I swear that I almost had a heart attack when I was awakened by Cassie
my granddaughter jumping on my stomach.
“Stop that right now Cassie!” Jessica said, looking more like George
than ever.
“What,” I asked, “exactly is it that you want Jessica?”
“Minnie Mouse.” Jessica said, and seeing my blank look added. “You know
the Minnie Mouse backpack that Dad bought me in Disney Land when I was five. I
thought Cassie might like it so I phoned dad last night and he said that Minne
was looking a bit grubby but he’d take her to the cleaners. I thought that I’d
save him the bother. Mom....mom!”
Take her to the cleaners! There was an agonising pain in my chest - I
couldn’t breathe! Jessica was looking down at me and then everything faded away.
