And now for something completely different…
A little while ago, I posted a story idea on Notes. I threw it out fairly flippantly, but people got into the concept. Lots of people responded. even came up with a leading lady for the TV adaptation. So then the idea burrowed into my brain and I couldn’t let go. Therefore it has become this week’s post, and, frankly, you all only have yourselves to blame.
Now, if someone could find me Miriam Margolyes’ agent…
The one thing I learned from my father is: men are idiots.
That wasn’t the lesson he was going for, of course, but his teaching was more through observation that any actual interaction with me.
I suppose if he’d wanted to teach me anything about men, it would have been to be afraid of them. Maybe I was afraid of him, for a while. Not at first - I always understood that he was just a fucking coward. But once I realised that he could get away with it. That scared me. I remember telling him, full of righteous defiance, as small children can be, that I would call the police. I was probably all of six years old. He was coming out of their bedroom, I could hear her crying. I think I might have stamped my foot. In my memory, my arms are folded.
And he is laughing. He’s holding his hand, rubbing the knuckles, they’re red, obviously sore. And he’s laughing at me. But his eyes are cold.
“Go on, then,” he says. That look on his face chills me, sucks all the heated indignation out of my body. I try to hold my ground, but he just continues to stare at me, daring me. And I turn and run.
I did go to the police, though. In those days, there were policemen on the streets, and one of them used to stroll around near my school. I remember working up the courage to go over to him on my way home - it took me quite a few days and several failed attempts. Was I older then? Six seems young to be walking home alone, but it wasn’t far and things were very different then. Time conflates in your memory and it’s hard to place myself in the chain of events. Anyway, eventually I bit my lip, balled my fists, and marched over to the officer.
“My dad hurts my mummy.” He was a kind man, that officer. He had that beat for years, and he knew us all, would say hello as we made our way to and from school. Sometimes he’d give us sweets. As he looked down at me that day, his eyes softened. He knelt down so he was on my level - adults do that now, don’t they? But they didn’t used to then, it felt significant. He put a hand on my shoulder, and his eyes were sad.
“Does he now?” he asked. But it wasn’t really a question. Something in the way he was looking at the ground, rather than at me, and the fact that he didn’t look shocked made me realise he probably already knew all about my father. Maybe everyone did. “I’m afraid that’s not really any of my business, Alma, my duck. That’s between your mum and your dad.” He looked at me then, and he looked sorry, but he also looked like he wasn’t going to do anything. Nothing he could do, I suppose. It wasn’t a crime in those days. Domestic matter.
It’s not all that long ago, you know. I know young people like to think I’m a fossil from a bygone age, but it was still legal for a man to rape his wife in 1992. We think we’ve evolved so far, but progress has been slow and hard won. And we’ve a way to go yet.
Anyway, my father was mean, but, ultimately I realised he was an idiot. He threw his fists around because he was frustrated by how much smarter my mother was than him. He was small and weak and bitter about his lot in life. He used his physical power because it was the only power he had.
Most of them are the same. The use the power society gives them over women like peacock feathers, dressing up to hide how plain they really are. And the gap between how superior they act and the people they know they are in reality makes them angry and anxious and fucking terrified of being found out. Which makes them all the meaner.
Take Toby Harris, for example. Three separate women came forward about him. One of them was a friend of my Rosie’s from work. A lot younger than Rose, she’d taken her under her wing, I think, and that’s why the poor girl sobbed to her about how horrific the whole ordeal had been - going to the police was worse than the attack itself. They gave her a horrible time. Brutal physical exam, then they questioned her for hours. Then confiscated her bloody phone to check if there were any messages between them, to see if she’d been giving him the come on. She hadn’t, not that it should have mattered. She stuck it out, her and the other two brave lasses, made it all the way to court. And it wasn’t easy for them, after all they’d been through. We were in court, me and Rosie - she wanted to be there for her friend, and I wanted to be there for her - we heard the interrogation they had to face, as if they were accused of something rather than the victims. All that, only for the judge to say there wasn’t enough evidence. He couldn’t, in good conscience, ruin a man’s life just on the strength of someone’s word, he said. What fucking conscience? No mention of the women’s lives. Three women who’d come forward, how many more were silenced? How many more would there have been if he’d been allowed to carry on?
It was easy enough to get him alone. Georgie, my granddaughter, she’s always talking about how easy it is to make a fake profile online. How her and her friends check whether someone’s likely to be real. When she comes to mine after school, on the days Rose is at work, she shows me how to use TikTok and the like.
You think we don’t know how to use technology, us old fogies, but our generation invented the fucking internet. We’ve had to adapt to more changes in our lifetimes than you could ever deal with. We didn’t even have a telly when I was a girl, and we had a bloody outside loo. My gran was horrified when indoor ones were introduced - she said it wasn’t at all hygenic! Well, if I could learn to use email and contactless payment, believe me, it was easy enough to make a bloody fake dating profile. I had to try a couple of sites before I found him, but I knew he’d be on one. Didn’t take him long to agree to meet in the woods, either. He didn’t question it. Men don’t have to. He thought he was the predator. So blasé, walking into a dark, secluded wood all alone, without telling a soul where he was going.
He saw me coming towards him while he was waiting, I didn’t try to hide. He thought I was just out for a walk. I passed by the bench he was on, I was behind him, he didn’t even turn to look. Must have been quite the shock when he felt the knife at his throat, but by then it was too late to cry out. It was quick. Quicker than he deserved. Once he was still, I went through his pockets, took his wallet. A mugging, they would assume - he probably tried to fight back, and they panicked.
People see what they want to see.
I was almost caught red-handed, though. In fact, I was. Quite literally. I wiped off the knife, slipped it back in my handbag with his wallet to dispose of later, and headed back along the path. But he’d bled a lot, you see, and it was all over my hands. And all around my nails. It always seems to be the nailbed that holds onto stains. Georgie paints my nails, sometimes, such a variety of colours they have these days. She always tells me off for the state of my nails, but between the gardening and the baking… well, I never was one for keeping all neat and tidy. I wished they were painted, then, to hide the blood, but there was a fringe of pink all around several of them. And patches of red on my hands. I looked like I was playing Lady Macbeth. I tried rubbing them on the cloth that I’d wiped the knife on, but the red seemed to have soaked into my skin. I decided that I’d have to deal with it at home, so I hid the cloth right at the bottom of my bag, and left the woods.
I wasn’t far from home when I bumped into Martin Roper, of all people - a bloody solicitor!
“Hello, Alma, how are you?” he called brightly.
“Oh, hello Martin,” I said, while I’m thinking fuck, fuck, fuck. “I’m very well, thank you. How are you? How’s Lauren?”
“Oh, she’s fine, thanks, her mother’s taken another turn, so she’s gone up to Leicester a few days.”
“Sorry to hear that, give her my best.” I’m aware that I’m rubbing at my hands and that they’re still stained red, so I think I’ll have to say something. “I’ve just put a batch of jam on - let me pop some round to you when it’s ready. Something nice for your breakfast while Lauren’s away.”
“Oh, that’s very kind of you, Alma, thank you.”
“No bother at all, Martin. I better get back to it though, don’t want it to boil over. I just popped out to get a lemon,” I pat my handbag. “Gives it a bit of extra zing.” I smile, then look at my hands as if I’ve only just noticed. “Gosh, those raspberries don’t half stain,” I chuckle.
“Yes, you look like you’ve been in battle, Alma.” He’s pleased with his joke. He thinks of me as an old lady, but he’s not all that much younger than me - no one much younger than him would remember the Battle of Alma. They don’t teach it at school anymore. Georgie didn’t know what I was on about.
“Well I’ll pop round later with the jam, Martin.”
“Lovely, I’ll look forward to that.”
Had to rustle up a load of jam after that, didn’t I? I didn’t want to risk being seen picking raspberries, not after I told Martin the jam was already on, so I drove an hour to buy them so no one would recognise me. Just in case. Threw Toby’s wallet in a bin while I was there. I cut up all his cards first, and a few days later I threw the pieces in another bin an hour in a different direction. I burned the bloodstained cloth with some garden waste.
And, of course, no one even considered that I’d have anything to do with it. They underestimate you when you get to my age.
They wrote it off as a mugging, obviously. Everyone was very careful about being out alone for a while, but people get bored of being afraid very quickly. Prayers were said - well, you know. Not that Toby was a churchgoer, but any excuse for a bit of piety, I suppose.
I should probably be worried about my immortal soul, but, I must confess, I don’t really believe in all that. It’s tempting to believe that there’s a hell where men like my father and Toby will be rotting, and a heaven where women like my mother will be free of them - especially as they buried her right next to him, her name attached to his for all eternity. But I just don’t buy it. Why have I kept turning up to mass all these years, then? Habit, maybe? It’s nice to be part of a community, to have somewhere to go every Sunday. Especially now I’m on my own. Not alone, of course, Rose and Georgie are so near, I’m luckier than a lot of old codgers, but it’s not the same when they don’t live with you.
And I suppose I keep going for Reg’s sake. He never missed a Sunday mass, unless we were on holiday. Not that he believed a word of any of it, either, but it helped to keep up appearances, or he felt it did, anyway. So I keep on with it because I don’t want to let him down. I do miss him. Most people get married full of passion and then find it hard when it all fades to companionship, but we started off as friends so we knew what we were getting. And he was my best friend. We’d been through so much together. What would he have made of all this? I like to think he’d have helped. He certainly had no time for men like these. Ashley Wood, fucking hell, Reg would’ve gone beserk.
To be continued…
I hope you enjoyed this piece - it means so much to me to have you reading my work that I pour my heart into. It takes a lot of time and energy to craft these posts for you - if you’d like to support me in being able to keep up with my writing, then you can become a paid subscriber, or contribute a one-off donation via Buy Me A Coffee.
Oo, give me more!
Hello Allegra
Well, I truly do not know where to begin, to be quite honest, because this is just bloody brilliant!!
But here goes...
First of all, the title "Served Cold" is perfect because I immediately thought of the saying 'revenge is a dish, best-served cold' (which I think was your intention ?), and it catches the attention straight away.
You established the character of the protagonist and her motivation for her behavior by recounting her childhood experiences and her helplessness as a child towards her father, which becomes the incentive and sets the scene later, to act out her revenge because she is a grown woman and no longer impotent.
The layers of the character, right there, are an absolute delight for an Actor and make the job of the Director an easy one because he does not have to search for any kind of "subplot".
It is all there right in front of him!
I had, of course, absolutely no idea what the topic or the setting of your story would be, and the fact that you decided on domestic violence towards women, is a stroke of genius, and could not be more actual than it is today, and a subject that should be brought to light and no longer a Taboo.
Even though your little old lady's "crusade," is, if nothing else, somewhat extreme....(lol)
(It is also a subject close to my heart, but that is a story for another day).
As I read your story, I could see it all in my head (my brain works like a camera), and when that happens, I know for sure that it is a good story!
I am looking forward to how the story develops and how many others she kills (?)
And if she gets away with it, and how?
(Thank you for mentioning me by the way, I am truly flattered) 🙏
Oh, I almost forgot, the name of Miriam Margoyles's agent is Olivia Homan (I googled it).....😉
I wish you and your family a peaceful weekend
your Anthony