Fiction - Satire - Chafing Pt II

Part Two

Helen Fulsome looked longingly through the window at Stan Slycer’s fingers buried in the white wax flesh of a pig’s rump. He was a strong, silent, earthy man. His shop was a traditional butchers shop with sawdust on the floor and dead birds and animals hanging over the counter. The smell of raw flesh and blood filled the air. He heaved the side of meat off his shoulder and slapped it onto the chopping block as she entered the shop.

An involuntary shudder went through her.

“Morning Stan,” she said a little too loudly placing eggs on the counter. “Two dozen short this week. The hens are off about something.” She said feeling foolish. He stared at her. Under the green buttoned woollen hacking jacket he saw the blue and white stripped blouse hugged well formed breasts. Riding breeches clung to well rounded buttocks.

“Bacon,” he said as he wielded the clever deep into the pigs flesh “and eggs.” He stared again. “I like bacon and egg in the morning, after a good nights…..” He paused and she tingled in anticipation “…sleep” he said deliberately. He stared at her so hard she thought she would faint. “Do you want it now?” he said moving from behind the chopping block. She held onto the counter for fear of falling. He came and stood in front of her putting his hand under his apron. There was a long pause as they looked at each other. “The money for the eggs?” he said at last. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

 Digger Davies nodded to Stan as he entered the shop. “Stan.” For a moment the three stood and assessed each other.  “Helen,” he said in greeting. They stood like three heffers in a field.

“Digger” Stan nodded back. Helen blushed.

“Is it true you’re the real Slim Shady Stan?”

“You don’t want to believe everything you read in the papers Digger.”

“No, it was on the internet, chat forum.”

“Oh yeah and which one was that?”

“Rather not say in front of present company.”

They looked at each other again.

Digger nodded at something hidden under his coat. “A man said you might want...” he let it hang in the air.

Stan nodded. “Better go out the back then.” Digger smiled at Helen. “Helen,” he said and disappeared through a chain curtain.

 “I’ll come back , you’re busy…” she stammered.

“Morning Stan, Helen,” said Dick the postman and nodded at them.

“Dick,” Stan nodded back.

“I hear you’re the real Slim Shady.”

“You don’t want to believe everything you read on chat forums.”

“No, it was on Twitter. Where you want these letters then? Not much. Emails are doing me out of a job.”

“Digger’s out there,” he said

Dick nodded at Stan smiled at Helen and disappeared out the back.

Stan took a step closer to Helen and said in a low voice “Close at 4.00.” He was so close she could feel the heat of his body, it made her dizzy. She tried to speak but failed. She dipped her head like a young swan by way of reply and walked hesitantly to the door.

Duggie Davies, who was in some way related to Dave Davies, stopped as she passed him and watched her to the Range Rover. He adjusted the baseball cap under his hoodie, spat and took a sip of beer from the ever-present uplifted can in his right hand. “Slim Shady my arse,” he mumbled and entered the shop.

Jardine Meredith Puckersque a renowned raconteur and wit, and some said sot, wrote a history of Chaffing on the Wold between the wars - the Boer War and the Great War. The briefest glance showed that it was more anecdote than substance in nature, and in truth, much was fiction. Jardine Meredith Puckersque had done a great deal of his research in the Black Heart Inn aided and abetted by locals who drank as much as him. Stimulated by a glass or two they were able to regale him with the real history of the village. “Great sport was had in its making.” He was reported to have said in the local press. A revision of his history was made by the more abstemious Rev Jeremiah Launston Smyth a very thin and dry man. No one was really sure how the copy in the reference section of the library had been so liberally annotated in green ink.  

Chafing on the Wold is a beautiful village….

….. where a divided rural community with its retired educated narrow minded interlopers, and its uneducated and close minded natives, participate in the pretence of a master/slave relationship. It is full of ignorance, whether among those who had been gifted by a great white Victorian God with clear moral values and the natural bearing of authority, or those who grow cabbage. In short, had the Raj not returned to Cheltenham it would have found its home here.

…….possibly pre Saxon in origin. Visitors……

…….have found that there are three tea shops where seething animosities are expressed and exchanged in low voices and warm smiles. The local tea shop is for locals, but the local, local tea shop, is only for locals, while the local, locals, local tea shop, is only for local locals…They will not…

….have found the village to be a welcoming stop on a visit to the Wolds.

The village can boast at least twelve families that can trace their ancestors back as far as the Doomsday book.

……The exotic proverbial migrant birds of a feather collect together and roost high, bathing in the warm glow of the setting sun of their successful lives, while the natives, are testament to life being short, brutish and nasty. A sentiment often expressed at the bar of the Black Heart Inn is ‘It’s all bastard bollocks ent it!’