Cold Shoulder

          Her body shuddered beneath her skin as she came down the hill and headed for the shop. The butcher’s shop ‘C. Richards & Son’ had been established in the town since 1932; the new ‘Son’ Alan Fischer, had purchased the name along with the business’s reputation. Alan had clean smooth skin, rosy cheeks and a bombastic personality which flowed over the thick, white-cotton butcher’s coat that tented his block-like mass. Perceived as a jolly man, his crisp, blue eyes would twinkle mercilessly when he was skinning rabbits on the backroom butcher’s block. Cut meat was cut meat; hanging slabs of pork or beef bore no resemblance to their original owners. Lupin heads hacked with an axe, the sound of skin ripping off the flesh, hessian sacks overflowing with crimson-stained, white fur: it was the rabbits that always disturbed her.

          Connie, Alan’s elderly mother-in-law, managed the delicatessen counter where Sally worked most evenings after school, and Saturday mornings. Sometimes, she had to help out on the butcher’s counter, but it was Connie that she reported to and who taught her the art of carving ham off the bone.

          “Now watch me. Start by slicing off the face of the hambone like this.” Connie hoisted the heavy ham joint onto the porcelain carving pedestal and started carving, “...until you get to the knuckle, then turn the ham over and carve the fleshy meat until you get to the bone – these are the best, juiciest, and largest slices – nearer the bone, sweeter the meat.” As Connie carved, Sally slipped the slices in-between waxed sheets to pack. Four slices a sheet. “Then turn the bone upright so the hock slips into this hole in the carving pedestal. That’ll hold it steady so that you can carve round and round until you get to the end of the knuckle. These are the worst slices, more gristle, less easy to slice and less popular with the clients. The trick is to carve it in a way that you mix up the slices and slip the sinewy bits in-between the lush ones. You know Alan doesn’t like waste.”

           Sally had quickly learnt to carve the ham in wafer-thin or Sunday-lunch-slab as requested, and her quick mind would calculate the complex prices as she went, noting sub-totals on a slip of paper, before pressing the final amount into the antique register and recited the order to the customer.

          “Quarter pound of ham, half pound of coleslaw, two faggots, slice of turkey pie and a packet of Eccles cakes. That’ll be twelve pounds, fifteen and a half pence please.”

           Sally wasn’t the prettiest of girls, but she had a big smile, chatted good-humoredly, and the customers liked her; especially the old ladies with meagre pensions to whom she’d slip prime cuts into their cheap end-of-roll sheets. Connie was fond of her protégé, and Sally liking her job and the customers, was happy to accept Connie’s matronly bossiness. On a Saturday morning, Sally’s dad would do the food shopping and when his daughter started working there, he moved his business from the rival butchers at the other end of the High Street to Richards and Son. Alan would make a big fuss over her dad, knowing he would stretch the purse for the best topside Sunday roast, whilst Alan relished trade stolen from his competitor. Knowing his preferences, Sally would cut up the turkey-and-ham pie and a chunk of stilton, so that they would be ready when her dad finished at the butcher’s counter. Sometimes as she waited, she envisioned pointing to Alan and screaming...“Him! Dad! Him!”

          But she knew she never would. She could never talk to her dad about something like that and she knew Alan would deny it. Instead, she watched as Alan joked with her father, and bristled at their male bravado.

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          All the butchers enjoyed teasing her, even the butcher boys who threw sausage-skin blood bombs over the fence after hours for a laugh. But, on some nights, when Connie went home early, the jokes got less good-humored and more inappropriate.

          “Here look at this Sally!” Alan would slap a large, dried salami onto the counter in front of her.                        “Gruesome, eh?”

          They would all stop and look at her, snuffling their lecherous humor, knowing what was coming.

          “Go, on Sal. Give it a rub, and it will grew-some more!”

          Most of the time Sally would roll her eyes and pretend it didn’t bother her. But it bothered her. The same way that it bothered her when she had to use the stepladder to restock the shelf above the refrigerated unit. She’d work quickly, dreading Alan’s sudden appearance.

          “Here girl. Let me give you a hand there, that ladder looks a little wobbly.” He’d jostle the steps to make her wobble, then pretending to catch her, he’d slip his hand up her overalls, grasping for a quick feel of her. She was often late these days because she’d go home first to change into her jeans, rather than coming in her school skirt. But that didn’t stop him – just made him grab harder. She would just squirm, kick her leg out, and leap down. He would laugh, and her mind would scream fuck off!

It bothered her when they would send her into the large indoor refrigerator with some pretense that they needed more offal for a customer. The heavy metal door would shut behind her as the light went off. There was no safety latch or light switch on the inside of the cold- rooms, and she’d fumble between the hanging carcasses of dead pigs, sheep, and cows; their creamy fat, slimy against her palms as she’d try to steady herself in the dark. Reaching out, touching something warmer than the dead meat...screaming...the door would swing open, the butchers bent double laughing and Alan followed out after her, smirking. These repeated pranks never failed to amuse them. The first time, she’d been more scared of freezing to death if they’d left her there, but Jim had reassured her,

          “They’re just big fridges love, you wouldn’t freeze to death for a week with all that food to eat.” Then he’d laugh, “Mind you, they’re airtight. You might last a day in this raw meat fridge, but that deli fridge down the end of the yard, the chiller – that’s small. You’d probably suffocate in less than eight or nine hours!”

They all laughed thinking her concerns were ridiculous.

          At the end of the day, Sally would cover the cooked meats with clear film and pack them into the huge plastic butcher’s tray, shuffling the cold cuts like a puzzle to get the tightest fit, keeping the ends secure and fresh. The weight didn’t bother her – she was a strong girl – but she felt vulnerable carrying it. She had to stretch her arms wide to reach the handles, balancing the loaded tray against her body to lug it through the shop, passed the backroom block, passed the kitchen, under the stairs that led up to the break room, to the end of the dimly lit yard where the Deli refrigerator stood. She hated the yard. Even in daylight it was creepy, wooden pallets perched precariously against the old stock-brick walls, strewn with discarded packing materials, still bloodstained, and smelling of death. Billy, the apprentice butcher, was supposed to scrub down the yard every day. The soapy, pink pools left still smelt of dead meat.

         

           As Sally entered the shop that Friday evening, she was relieved to see Connie bustling behind the counter. She sighed momentarily relieved.

          “Hurry up lovey. I want to get off early. Go upstairs and get your overalls on.”

          Scanning the shop, Sally spotted Old Jim splitting ribs on the meat counter with a heavy cleaver - but no Alan. Skirting through the back rooms, her heart pounded as she shot up the outside steps to the tatty break room. She slipped off her jacket and opened the closet, reaching for her tatty overall. Connie washed them all once a week, but they still smelt of dead meat. The tatty room smelt of dead meat. She didn’t have time to linger, didn’t want to be caught alone, but as she spun round...there he was.

          “Late again, Sally?”
          “Sorry Alan, it’s just tight getting here after school.”
           “I’ll have to start docking your wages.” His imposing form blocked the doorway, the late

sun shining through his hair like a misplaced halo.
          “It won’t happen again, Alan.” Averting her eyes, she redressed the hanger with her coat

and missing the rail, let it fall, closing the door hurriedly, “I’d better get downstairs. Connie’s waiting to get off.”

           He made no effort to step out of the way.
          “Really Alan. Connie’s waiting for me. She’ll be cross.”
          She couldn’t look at him. She thought of darting around him but that would involve

contact. He would press his overstuffed hard belly against her. Thank God he was too fat to press his cock against her.

          “What’s stopping you, Sal?” The sneer crawled off his lips. The white fur peeled cruelly from the rabbit’s flesh. An approaching voice clattered up the metal steps,

           “Sally! Salleeeee...!” Connie bustled past Alan into the room, slipping off her overall as she talked. Did she know?

          “Come on lass. Hurry up. There’s no one minding the deli counter!”
          “Sorry Connie. I’ll go right down.”
          “Good!” Then smiling her toothy grin, “Shop’s shut tomorrow for the holiday, and my lovely son-in-law has treated us to a night on the town, dinner, hotel, and musical! So, I must hurry!”

          “That’s right, Connie, you whisk my wife off for the night and enjoy yourselves.” Alan commented jovially, ostensibly holding the door for Sally, but his hand slipped discretely, brushing her small, young breasts while Connie fussed with her back to them, exchanging her overall for her coat. His next words were as cold as the chiller, “Sally will help me close-up tonight. Won’t you girl?” Her blood ran cold.

           Billy was making sausages in the kitchen, pork off-cuts, fat, grizzle, leftovers caked in sawdust from the floor when he dropped chunks and pressed them through the meat grinder. The whirring machine farted out long tubes of pale mulch squeezed into the sheep-gut skins. Every now and then, Billy would scoop up the stuffed casings and adroitly twist them into three-inch links, looping them round to make bundles of twelve sausages before cutting them off and stacking them in the tin tray next to him. Jim was tending to customers at the meat counter. Shoppers trickled in and out, enough to keep Sally in the shop front and able to avoid Alan, who kept his beady eyes on her. She wanted to go straight home, but there would be that period between closing and leaving...lost in her anxiety, she started wrapping up the meats early and filling the tray to return to the chiller. He watched her.

          “Come on lads, let’s get packed up and go home.” Alan barked cheerfully, chiding them all to leave. Sally finished laying out the large sheets of greaseproof paper to cover the pantry goods before turning out the counter-lights. Alan moved deftly through both sections, meticulously emptying the cash from the tills.

“Jim run the takings round to the bank for me and you can leave early.”

Anxiety blossomed into panic. Sally’s coat was up in the office, could she get passed him? She still had to take the tray out to the yard. Then Billy left, winking at her as he walked out, and Alan stood there at the door, turning around the closed sign and ready to lock up after the men left. Sally seized her chance, she ran out the back, up the stairs, fumbling on the floor of the closet to find her jacket. She shoved her apron in, before running back downstairs, skidding into the front shop just as Jim was shouting goodnight.

          “Hang on Jim, I’ll walk with you.” Sally rushed into the shop front. Jim paused, surprised, Alan grimaced for a moment, scanning the room, before he saw he spotted a snare to catch the rabbit.

          “Hey you little shirker. Come late and leave without putting the cold meats away?”

          Jim laughed, “He got ya there lass. I can’t be waiting or the bank’ll close, go finish up your job!”

          The men chortled, and Alan patted the chunky old man on the shoulder as he bade him goodnight, locking the door behind him and switching off the shopfront lights. Keeping her coat on, Sally heaved up the heavy tray and headed back through the shop out to the back yard, hurrying so fast her foot slipped on the greasy floor, nearly toppling her, ignoring the pain as her hip bumped against the hard wooden butcher’s block, before steadying herself and racing on. Alan didn’t have to rush to follow her.

          It was a bitter cold night, dark early with the winter closing in as she set down the heavy tray on a pallet, needing both hands to tug open the awkward latch. It was colder still when she swung open the door and entered the dimly lit, refrigerated room. On either side, the shelves were stacked with cooked produce; honey-roasted hams, off-the-bone, cheap processed meats, salamis, tubs of coleslaw and potato salad, sides of roast beefs, pork, and turkey. Dead meat. Flustered, she moved down the narrow walkway to the back of the fridge and where an empty space waited for the deli tray.

          She could smell his aftershave sauntering up the yard, tears of anger, frustration and humiliation stung her eyes while her fingers went frigid, the heavy tray slipped and started to fall...and Alan was there... stepping nimbly behind her, ostensibly to catch the tray, but using the opportunity to close the trap. Reaching his arms over hers, he pressed his gut against her, she could feel him, hear him moan as he buried his face in her hair. The blood rushed beneath her skin, as the bile rose in her throat.

Suddenly she released the tray and ducked down, escaping under his arm, Alan started needing to rebalance the tray’s full weight.

          “I forgot the hambone. It’s still on the pedestal, I’ll just go get it.” Her mind raced, buy time, think, get away. Unfazed knowing his prey was locked in, Alan tutted, shaking his head as he hoisted the tray onto the shelf, and turned just in time to see Sally swing the heavy door shut. Shut. Shut tight. 

          Stunned by her own actions, she slumped back against the locked door. She closed her eyes, and for a moment thought her heart was going to explode before she realized that it wasn’t her heart pounding. The silent reverberations were coming from the heavy fists pounding against the door. Sally visualized Alan shouting; his eyes mean with vengeance. Her body still pressed

against the door, she reached her hand up behind her, and flicked off the switch that controlled the internal light. For the moment it seemed the pounding became more frantic, as she paused, fixated on her heavy breath crystalizing in the cold night air like little stars or fairies twinkling in the night.

          Then the rabbit stood tall on its hind legs and groomed its soft white fur, before slipping out of the side gate and scurrying down the alley.

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First Published in Obscura The Literary & Arts Magazine Vol. 14, Spring 2023

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