by Clive Barry
Sally knew there would be as much on the outside of the bowl as there was ever likely to have gone in it. Another job for her later that day, mop up Charlie’s piss from the bathroom floor, wash the puke soiled sheets and probably his shit stained boxers from a followed through wet fart. Sally loved it when Charlie had a good night out.
CHAPTER THREE
Charlie was a bit older than Sally at twenty seven. He’d never had a job, leaving school twelve years earlier with neither a completed education of any type, nor any qualifications whatsoever.
He was just below average height at five feet eight but what he lost in height, he now made up for in girth and weighed around eighteen stone.
Charlie had a premature receding hair line and therefore shaved his head as was popular in the area by a lot of the other lads. He had Charlie and Georgia tattooed on his right forearm in old English script and a Japanese Samurai sword on the left one. Charlie thought he looked dead hard, but to all the other lads that knew him, he looked like uncle Fester and was just a legend in his own mind.
Charlie had never been the athletic or animated sort, not even when they’d first met. Although he had been much thinner in those days. But Sally as a young lass had been both flattered by the attention of an older lad and quite taken in by his eloquent gift of the gab and supposedly at the time, his gentle, if not somewhat weird sense of humour.
One night not too long into their relationship Sally had, after much persuasion, succumbed to Charlie’s passionate advances and thirty six weeks to the very day, little Charlie popped his head out. Mam and Dad had gone ballistic when they were told she was pregnant and Mike her brother had wanted to go around and have a quiet word with him. Older brother Paul was away at the time with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan, both brothers were well known in the area as a couple of handy lads.
Eventually everyone calmed down when she explained it had probably been as much her idea as it had been his. This had been far from true, but as tempers were already totally frayed, this wouldn’t have been the best time to dispute it.
They were married at the local Registry office soon after. Sally however being under the age of consent at seventeen, was required to have signed permission from Mam and Dad. That done, nothing more was to be said. The saddest part of this whole travesty was, those were the good times, it all went downhill rather quickly after that.
Charlie walked into the kitchen rearranging his genitals through the vomit stained jeans he’d just slept in.
‘What the fucks the matter wi’ you?’ He asked.
He was wearing neither a shirt nor socks and his immense white, blue veined belly protruded like a jelly type substance over the top of his unfastened jeans.
His breath smelt as though something evil had climbed inside his mouth and died and he had a week’s growth of patchy beard with some very unpleasant looking yellow sleep encrusted in the corners of his swollen bloodshot piggy eyes.
‘What happened to yeh fuckin’ face then Sal? It’s a fuckin’ improvement man.’
Charlie chuckled at his own little joke. Sally just looked down, she knew much better than to speak just yet. Charlie would need time to talk and find another pathetically lame excuse for what he’d done to her the night before and if he could, she knew he would blame it all on anyone and everyone, it was never going to be just his fault.
‘Can’t believe them last night,’ was his opening rhetoric. It was almost as though nothing else in the world had either taken place or mattered.
‘Lost three fuckin’ goals to two and by a bloody penalty. What a bunch of fuckin’ tossers. I coulda done better me fuckin’ self and with me fuckin’ eyes shut. I had a fuckin’ tenner on that game.’
Charlie rambled on for the next few minutes about who did what and who should have done this, or who should have done that. Then who had said what to whom and eventually went onto the subject which had obviously been the one to upset him this time.
‘That fuckin’ Mark last night. He reckons you’re too fuckin’ good for me. He reckons you coulda had anyone yeh wanted, he even says you’re a fuckin’ good catch and I should take better fuckin’ care of yeh. Well I fuckin’ told him straight man, it does what it’s fuckin’ told mate. Have you been seeing him behind me back? Cos if I fuckin’ find out yeh have, you’re gonna get more than just a tiny fuckin’ slap.’
So, that’s what this was all about. Sally didn’t even know which one of Charlies’ cronies Mark was. She didn’t know who any of the people Charlie mixed with were anymore. They were all loud, vulgar and enjoyed talking to each other in sentences containing numerous four letter expletives and wild hand gesticulations of the one and two finger variety.
‘You deserve everything yeh get,’ Charlie said, ‘I’m a fuckin’ good husband and yeh just take fuckin’ advantage of me good fuckin’ nature. Yeh want for nowt around ‘ere and that Mark needs to mind his own fuckin’ business man.’
Charlie actually believed everything he said, but his insecurities were starting to show, and Sally was on the brink of feeling sorry for him yet again. She always did, he was so absurdly pathetic.
She put his bowl of cornflakes in front of him and his big mug of tea, then completed making the instant coffee she’d promised herself an hour earlier.
Once Charlie had completed eating the first bowl of cereal and was halfway through his tea, Sally plucked up enough courage to address the present situation and started by quietly saying.
‘This has got to stop you know Charlie pet. You really hurt us again last night, an’ I can’t go on gettin’ hurt like that anymore.’
‘Not my fuckin’ fault, is it?’ Was his reply, ‘if you’d a stayed fuckin’ still and done what I’d fuckin’ told yeh to do, we coulda all been playin’ ‘appy fuckin’ families by now.’
‘But it’s happenin’ all the time Charlie and I’m runnin’ out of excuses and what to say to people about the state of us. I’m a human bein’ and you’re treatin’ us worse than an animal,’ Sally replied.
Sally’s eyes started to brim with tears, she’d thought they’d dried out last night after he’d kicked her all over the bedroom floor and was now becoming angry with herself for allowing him to see her vulnerable all over again.
‘Yeh are a fuckin’ animal man!’
Charlie screamed at her, slobber, spit together with milky cornflakes spraying all over her face.
‘You’re me fuckin’ pet wife man and I’ll treat yeh any fuckin’ way I want and you’ll do as I fuckin’ say, won’t ya?’
As bulky as Charlie was, Sally didn’t even notice him stand up from his side of the table and walk around to her. The last thing she did notice when she looked up were the bright flashing lights, then miraculously everything went dark and quiet.
A little while later the lights flickered back on in Sally’s pounding head. She could just about hear Charlie voice off in the distance. He was watching Jeremy Kyle on the television and laughing at the guests.
‘Ow Sal, we should get on there. You could have that fuckin’ lie detector test and confess all yeh fuckin’ extra marital affairs?’ He was saying, ‘I find out either of those fuckin’ kids aren’t mine and you’ve been seein’ that Mark behind me fuckin’ back, you’re fuckin’ dead mate.’
Now Charlie was a total idle waste of space at the best of times, but one of his many brain numbing activities was to watch cookery programmes throughout the day.
This could be anything from the Great British Bake Off to Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook and although he himself was totally useless in the kitchen, other than the eating and drinking part, he firmly believed that every good cook should have sharp knives.
This was due in part to one of his daily television cook fests, when he’d heard the condescending words of wisdom uttered from Worrall Thompson saying, ‘blunt knives were far more dangerous than the sharp variety,’ and thus Charlie one quiet sunny afternoon had waddled out into the back yard and honed all the kitchen knives on an old whetsto
ne he’d found years before. Taking each and every one of them to the very best surgical quality edge he could possibly attain.
The family didn’t possess a full set of matching cutlery. They had a few odds and ends that friends and other members of the family had disposed of and donated to them over the years. Some of a reasonably good quality, but needless to say each and every one of them were all extremely sharp, because Charlie had actually successfully completed one of his very limited handyman jobs.
At the time Sally rose from the bench and walked to the kitchen sink, she hadn’t even considered how sharp the paring knife had been. She hadn’t considering anything, in fact she was totally oblivious to her surroundings. But for the next few short minutes of her young life, Sally Oldham nee Vickers felt as though she had total power against her long time oppressor.
For the second time that day Sally came out of a dream like stupor covered in blood. The good thing was, this time it wasn’t hers and she wasn’t feeling any further physical pain than she already had when she’d woken earlier that morning.
She stood staring at what had at one time, not too long before, been her fat, violent, overbearing husband. Then she went quietly and sat on the soft leather look sofa facing him. Feet and knees clenched tightly together, with hands sat demurely on her lap.
After a while, the adrenalin rush subsided and reality started to slowly sink in. She found herself staring and wondered why Charlie’s head was tilted so far back that he seemed to be smiling from his throat. She was still holding the blood stained knife in her hand and the smell of blood in the room was now far greater than it had been when she’d woken on the bedroom floor earlier that day.
The metallic iron stench was everywhere and not only the smell, the whole of Charlies bare chest, the chair he was sat in, together with the shag pile rug covering the council house painted concrete floor was a deep crimson red. ‘I don’t remember that colour,’ she sat thinking.
It wasn’t long, maybe a few short minutes before Sally became aware of what she’d done. She felt nauseous and ran to the kitchen where she retched into the sink, unable to remove the yellow coloured plastic washing up bowl quickly enough.
Cautiously she stepped back into the living room and looked at the remains of Charlie. He was still sat with his eyes wide open, smiling and watching Jeremy Kyle, but now it was Jeremy who was doing all the shouting and Charlie was just sat very quiet, smiling, but very quiet.
The whole house was far too silent. There was hardly a sound to be heard anywhere other than Sally’s jagged breathing and somewhere in the distance the voice of Jeremy. She was shaking uncontrollably now and seemed to be gasping for breath.
Sally wondered if she might be going into shock, so she ran again into the kitchen and completed drinking the coffee that she’d made so long before. It was still surprisingly warm. With the knife still clutched tightly in her right hand she stood covered from head to foot in her dead husband’s blood, wondering if it was nearly time to pick the bairns up from school yet, ‘what do I do?’
It wasn’t so much a thought, more of a wide awake nightmare, a panic.
‘What do I do? who can I call? don’t let them take me bairns away from me. I need to pick them up from school soon and I can’t bring them home to this. They’re going to hate me when they see what I did to their dad.’
A million thoughts went through Sally’s turmoiled mind in the space of a just few milliseconds, and at the end of it all she came to a very simple conclusion, phone our Paul.
CHAPTER FOUR
Paul Vickers was her eldest brother and next to Dad, was the closest thing Sally had to a guardian angel. He doted on his little sister, he loved her to big bits and would do just about anything for her. Sally knew this and had to be extremely careful about what she said in Paul’s presence.
Mike, the younger brother however was far more laid back, but Paul could be almost psychotic about protecting her. She was still his little baby sister, irrespective of how old she was or how many kids she might have. She would call Paul.
He picked up on the third ring.
‘Yeh, what you want?’ he answered.
‘It’s me Sally,’ she replied.
‘Away man, I know who yeh are, I wanna know what yeh want?’
Sally wasn’t sure how this was going to pan out so she became cautious.
‘I need teh talk to yeh our Paul. No! I need teh see
yeh, now, as soon as I can.’
Sally couldn’t keep the fear and tremble out of her voice.
‘Why what’s up sweetheart?’ Paul asked.
‘I can’t say over the phone our Paul, but I need teh see yeh now, at my place as soon as yeh can.
Paul, although the eldest sibling seemed to act quite immature at times and could sometimes appear on the surface, as though he was just not the brightest star in the sky. However, under that laid back, slow façade, he could be extremely subversive, so just to wind his little sister up a little bit more he asked again.
‘Why what’s up like?’
Sally was not generally the one to use expletives in her normal day to day vocabulary, but on this occasion felt the need to express herself with just a little bit more emphasise and therefore screamed down the phone at him.
‘Just fuckin’ get here now...please.’
There was a space of a second or two then she heard Paul’s meek reply.
‘Aye alright sweetheart, on me way, give us fifteen minutes. Hey, put the kettle on, I got our Mike with us, is that okay?’
‘Aye,’ she replied quietly, ‘please, just get here.’
George Vickers, Sally’s dad, was in his fifties, fifty six to be precise. He’d worked hard as a fisherman since leaving school at fifteen, first as a boy apprentice to his own father and then when his dad passed away after having a major heart attack, he took over the boat himself.
He bought the five metre Yorkshire coble, Bonny Doris, with a bank loan from Barclays in the late eighties and named her after his pretty young wife. They kept the boat on a trailer in a small lock up area with a few of the other fishermen’s boats across the Eastscar Esplanade near the beach, always ready to be launched on any available tide.
George, due to poor health caused by chain smoking related emphysema didn’t go out anymore now, but Paul and Mike were more than capable fishermen and had been going out with their dad as young lads of five or six years old, so now he just let them get on with it and take over the business of fishing.
When Paul got the call from his sister they’d just completed painting and weather proofing the small standing shelter on the boat. They’d been out in her earlier taking the morning tide, but the catch had been small, so they just turned around and came back ashore, in the end deciding to do some much needed maintenance instead.
They threw the remnants of the flask of tea they’d been sharing onto the sand covered tarmac, locked the boat up and wandered back to the old dark blue Ford Mondeo estate that was parked alongside the outer security fence.
Mike looked up at his older brother and asked.
‘So, what’s ‘appenin’ then?’
‘Don’t fuckin’ know our kid,’ Paul replied, shrugging his massive shoulders.
‘Our Sal needs us, she sounded weird though, it’s not like our Sal to bad talk like that. That fat bastard husband of hers better not a fuckin’ touched her again cos I swear she won’t be able to stop me rippin’ his fat fuckin’ head off his shoulders this time. He’s a lazy idle twat and for the life of me I will never understand what she fuckin’ saw in ‘im.’
Mike looked at his big brother, smiled and said nothing, they got into the car and with Paul driving, left the beach and drove without talking the short distance to Sally’s house.
The three siblings had always been close as children with both lads constantly looking out for their little baby sister. They actually believed she was a real princess when Mam brought her home from the maternity hospital, she even looked like one, perfec
t in every minute and tiny detail.
As close as they were however, they all respected each other’s privacy, so after parking the car outside Sally’s small council house at number 35 Frazer Avenue and walking up the uneven broken concrete path, passing the overgrown weed filled lawn littered with kids brightly coloured moulded plastic ride on cars and bikes, they knocked on the front door and waited for someone to invite them in.
It was Mike who noticed the vertical blind at the front window move, seconds later the door slowly opened, but with nobody standing there they just stepped inside.
Sally had retreated further back away from the open front door in the small passage and was now standing in the kitchen doorway.
‘Alright our Sal?’ Paul said as he walked in, ‘So what’s so fuckin’ urgent? Where’s lard arse?’
Then he saw her.
‘What’s he fuckin’ done to yeh? I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him.’
Mike who’d been standing behind his older brother had seen nothing and had no idea as to what was going on. Paul took the few steps to his baby sister and gently took hold of her slim hands in his huge paws.
Sally was sobbing uncontrollably now that her brothers had arrived, but felt that everything would be alright. Her big brothers always made everything alright.
‘He’s in there.’
She extracted herself from Paul’s grip, pointing with an uncontrolled, wildly shaking hand to the living room door on the left side of where she was standing. There was no sound emanating from inside the room. The television had turned itself off and an eerie silence prevailed.
For whatever reason, instinct made both Paul and Mike enter the living room cautiously, but when they finally stepped inside, nothing could have prepared them for what they saw.
‘Holy bloody shit!’ exclaimed Paul.
‘Oh, my fuck!’ was Mikes considered reply.
