A Knife In The Back – Alex Coombs

That was the limit of my knowledge. ‘They’re quite eco-friendly… quite Green,’ I added, lamely. ‘Aye, but ken, are they really witches, like, do they do witchy things?’ ‘Well, I guess they will do things like ask the help of the gods for practical things, like, job applications or the weather… I remember Esther doing some sort of ritual to ensure rain for her garden last year.

Why do you ask?’ ‘Just curious really, they don’t curse people?’ I immediately thought of Lance and the poppet. ‘Esther wouldn’t, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen her angry.’ ‘Never?’ Murdo looked disbelieving. ‘Never.’ I said firmly. It was true, Esther was unfailingly cheerful. About half an hour before service began, I went over to my dry-store to get some more flour.

There is a small bin of it in the kitchen and a huge bin of it in the outhouse. I walked out into the small cobbled yard at the back of the kitchen, stretched and looked around. It was a very pleasant place. I had herbs for the kitchen growing in planters: mint, parsley, a rosemary bush, and opposite the kitchen door I had the old brick outhouses, one for the freezers and one where I kept tinned goods, oil, stuff like that. I walked into the dry-store and stopped in horror.

Hanging from one of the shelves was a small, Rupert Bear doll. His paws were holding a very sharp looking pair of surgical scissors, the kind with long, sinister blades. The incongruity of it all, the wicked looking steel held by the normally benign bear was very disconcerting.

It would have been upsetting to anyone, but to someone who had nearly been killed by Rupert, it was horrific. Naturally he was wearing his trademark clothing. He looked as if he were about to spring into demonic life, wielding the scissors. It was a terrible kind of death threat. Immediately I was transported back to Lance’s house, back to the baseball bat attack and the freezer.

I actually felt like throwing up. My heart was thundering. I backed away, took a bin bag from the shelf (there was a shelf that contained cleaning stuff), opened it wide and, holding the plastic sides wide apart, put him inside. I didn’t want to touch him, I would have somehow felt contaminated. Once he was safely in the bag I carried him out to the wheelie bin and threw him in. Someone was clearly sending me a message: I know where you work, I know where you live and I’m coming for you.

I hadn’t been outside at 7 o’clock in the evening on a Thursday in years. Before, it was because I had been working in other people’s restaurants. Now, it was because I had a kitchen of my own to run. The outside world was the real world. The world I lived in most of the time was like the mythical world of Plato’s cave, lit by fires and guessable only by representations of reality that in my case were the food orders that the ticket machine delivered at periodic intervals.

Orders that I then had to turn into edible reality. But outside the kitchen walls, I knew that if you parked your car carefully – not by the side of the common which, as the many signs point out, is strictly forbidden – and strolled around Hampden Green, you’d think to yourself, ‘What a peaceful place.’

It’s what I had thought when I’d moved here. A hypothetical, disinterested observer would note the green, with its fenced-off play area, a couple of mothers supervising their children before bed in the late summer, some small boys playing football at the mini goal- posts and maybe a dog walker or two, exercising their animals with a fling- ball. It would seem like a nice place to raise a family or live a quiet life. The tasteful parish information noticeboard (made of wood, a kind of walnut stained finish and a glass case; you had to have permission to put notices inside) gives details of Zumba classes and yoga in the village hall – run by a new yoga teacher, a woman this time.

Regulars can be spotted sitting outside the local Three Bells pub having a quiet pint. And then there’s my restaurant, the Old Forge Café. In the calm, tranquil dining room that Thursday night, there were about twenty-five people, enjoying good food (at reasonable prices) efficiently and charmingly served by my young manager, Jess and her assistant waiter, Katie. A peaceful place to eat in a peaceful Chiltern village. Until you go inside the kitchen… Welcome to my world. Heat from the stove, heat from the chargrill, heat from the hot plate, heat from the lights keeping the food warm on the pass, heat from the backs of the fridges, heat from the deep-fat fryers, heat and steam from the dishwasher…

‘Cheque on!’ I shouted to Francis over the kitchen fans. It was like a furnace in here. My jacket was sodden with perspiration and stuck to my skin. I wiped my forehead with the back of my sleeve. ‘Two hake, one fillet steak medium rare, peppercorn sauce… no starter…’

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 0ce5c8c5c8da286f
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,731,424 bytes (1.651 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 224
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 367.54 minutes
• Total Words: 73,507
• Total Characters: 399,557
• Average Words per Page: 328.16
• Average Characters per Page: 1783.74

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