Lancashire Tripe
My God! What on earth was I thinking of? Y’know, for a career woman, I can be so bloody stupid sometimes. It isn’t even as if we hadn’t had a dress rehearsal. When we lived in Sussex he came to stay for a week, and I spent the next week apologising to everybody. He moaned about the beer, the way the pubs were run, the food, the traffic; nothing was right. Not a damned thing. He banged on about southerners, about there being no National Park south of Derby, about the north being the home of real football. My father’s brother he might be, but, if you’ll forgive the expression, he’s a pain in the arse. I was so glad to put him on the train back to Preston, you’ve no idea. If Don and I weren’t so close, the old bigot would have caused a divorce that week.
The trouble is, time deadens pain. I had forgotten. We moved to France, kept on Christmas card terms with the old sod, and then, Bam! I was so proud of our home that I wanted everyone to see it, even uncle Harry. Don did warn me, I must confess. “Katie” he said, “You’ll really regret it if you have him across. Remember Horsham? And just think what he’s going to be like about French food”.
Why, oh why didn’t I listen? No, old big-head me could handle it. Off went the invite, and uncle Harry is now here. He has been here for four days, and it seems like four years. We have three more days to go. Don is on the edge of a nervous breakdown, poor dear, and my old problem has come back. Don was dead right. The food has been an issue from day one, and I have been stupid enough to give way. So, uncle Harry has more or less taken over the kitchen, and we are having to stomach his idea of a good meal. Poor Don was ill all night last night.
My heart sank within an hour of his arrival. I picked him up at the station and called in a few shops in the square, getting stuff for dinner. Uncle Harry wandered off on his own, and, to be honest, I was glad to let him go. When he didn’t return to the car, I went looking for him. He was in a charcuterie, grinning like a Cheshire cat and, somehow, managing to make himself understood to the woman behind the counter. It took me several minutes to drag him out of there. On the way home he ranted on about the food in the shop, how he hadn’t seen stuff like that since his childhood after the war, how the English had forgotten how to eat, and all that kind of thing.
The next day, he came shopping with me again. He insisted. To humour him I agreed to let him choose the meal for that evening. I could have died when he asked the butcher if he sold cow-heels. Thankfully, the answer was a clear non. But my relief was short lived. That evening we had pigs feet, he called them trotters, for dinner. The next day we had black puddings, and yesterday he was boiling half a pigs head. The smell was terrible. That’s what made poor Don sick. Today he was looking for elder, which is apparently made from a cow’s udder. Disgusting! Fortunately, he couldn’t get any.
Tonight, he’s promised us a surprise, so goodness knows what he bought instead of elder. He won’t let either of us in the kitchen, and he’s been in there for ages, just popping out now and then for a fresh glass of cider. Poor Don still looks ill. At least there’s no revolting smell from the kitchen, so we might get lucky. Here he comes, the old devil. Oh, god! No! It’s tripe. Don! Don darling, where are you going?
Mancunian Tom Kilcourse is an ex-miner, ex-bus driver, ex-Ruskin College & Hull University student, ex-management guru, and at 77 nearly expired. Writes for fun because he can’t make it pay, but has been widely published. He lives with his wife in Cheshire.
Lancashire Tripe was first published in French News, where it won a competition, and then included in Tom Kilcourse’s first collection The Human Circus.