Charlie used to bring hunting trophies into the house. I never appreciated the headless mouse carcasses or twitching, butchered tits. Still, I told myself, this was nature at work.
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I took out a pocket calculator and started estimating. Fifty pounds of brisket at six dollars a pound. One good-sized rack of beef ribs for maybe eighty dollars. Nine pounds of beef heart at eight dollars per pound. Four pounds of liver at five per pound. Four rouladens at maybe fifteen each.
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He watched the train come into the station, little flashes of blue electricity snapping on the overhead wires as it hissed to a stop. He waited for passengers to get off before he swung himself up the step and entered the car.
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Look. They are dancing, the old man and Ruth. Their feet shuffle on the scuffed parquet, while four, maybe five, other customers nod in time to the music. In the ornate mirrors you can see the reflection of the nodding and the dancing.
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Several boys from the Grammar School down the road are loitering as I come out of the school gates. Their shirts are untucked, their ties askew. I give them one of my looks.
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In the time of rationing many items were prohibited. What affected us most was the restriction on anything pear-shaped. It was a fearful time, people became desperate and unpredictable in their behaviours if they did not have something pear-shaped around them.
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The sloth is sporting a pink bow and a gift tag. “Saw this and thought of you,” it reads, in a childlike scrawl that could belong to any of them. They titter in unison, but no-one claims responsibility. I remove the bow. The sloth shoots me a grateful glance.
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As I walked along the quay towards the cottages, I could see the car headlights near the French town of Carteret, fifteen miles away. They moved like fireflies in some overly complex, choreographed dance routine.
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Mr Hieronymus Bosch and I were both sworn members of the Confraternity of Our Blessed Lady, a society in which men can surely trust one another. No need for a third party to act as broker; we shook hands on the deal ourselves.
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Fish out of water; he’d never heard the expression before. He flipped it over in his mind’s eye, watching it flex and struggle. He was more of an eel, surely. Slim and sinewy.
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When our son tells us he is getting married, we’re in the kitchen, preparing dinner for the neighborhood party. George looks up from the table where he is slicing lemons, knife in one hand and half a lemon in the other, the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up.
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She holds onto the worktop, watches me put away milk. ‘I said full fat not skimmed.’ I nod sorry. She says white bread instead of brown, butter not low cholesterol spread, oily fish not blood-red steak. Curses chops free of marbling.
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The torrent of words left her breathless and tears were welling up in her eyes. Mascara running. Colours seeping along the wrinkles around her eyes and down her cheeks. He turned away as she moved towards the door and waved a vague hand.
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Jayden stopped in the stairwell and sniffed the air. Someone had mopped the steps with bleached water, but it wasn’t enough to hide the sweaty sock smell of Mrs Nowak’s corpse.
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The family who used to live next door let Tom fix a trellis to the side wall of their detached garage, which formed part of the boundary. Maud wondered if Beth would have been so amenable. Anyway, now the climbing hydrangea was flourishing, a cascade of green leaves covered in tiny white flowers like stars.