Mr Peacock goes to Sainsburys

A moment-by-moment day, in the life of a step-father.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Peacock goes to Sainsbury’s

by

Malenkov

 

 

Ilford, Essex

Great Britain, 1980’s

 

 

                                     

Mr Peacock says he must get the turkey on special offer in Sainsbury’s. Along Belgrave Road he tramps, along past King Neptunes with the line of customers spilling out the door onto the street; their coats wrapped against the biting North Sea winter wind; the greasy smell of salt and vinegar chips making his mouth water. The town hall clock you could hear from a mile off gonged four, five....

          Against the kerb of the zebra crossing, the swollen crowd presses behind him, the traffic lights turn green, then the pedestrian signal rings, bee, bee, bee, bee, beep, it’s bloody nippy out this morning and those clouds look threatening better get a move on before it rains, he thinks, shoving his fists deeper into the wool lined front pocket of his Parka. The traffic jam crawls by, winding up Ilford High Road; a pair of fluffy dice swinging from a rear view mirror in a beaten blue Ford Escort; a beet faced man in a dirty white transit van honks and waves his fist at the black Nissan in front with the ‘My Porsche is in the garage’ bumper sticker on the side; a double-decker bus is stopped in front of the Ilford Station, engine rumbling, the bus’s doors hiss, ejecting, excrement like, a mass of elbow-jostling-commuters--among them a  mother struggles to wedge her stroller through the tide (the traffic light turns red and the signal dies). Across the road, an attendant, ferries a convoy of shopping trolleys across the open tarmac of Sainsbury’s car park, his head down, one hand in the pocket, roach in the mouth.

          A spindly man, denims chopping in a hurried, clenched stride, grey stubble dotting pinched cheeks, so Mr Patel saw Mr Peacock, from under the archway of the Taj Mahal restaurant between the curling fingers of Mr Patel’s menthol cigarette smoke. Above it all, the swell, the stink and the frenzy of the detritus below, clangs the town hall clock: nine, ten.

          Bloody cabby almost run me over! Watch where yer going yer b*****d (a taxi, a swarthy faced man leaning forward in the driving seat, had darted out from under the car-park barrier). Bloody Indians are as bad as the Arabs, rates are going up again, that’s the fourth time in a row, “The government doesn’t give a fig about the man on the street”, Jim said at work yesterday, resting to push up the visor of his welding mask, the din of the blue-orange blow torch making it hard to talk, “Since Maggie got in the country’s going to the dogs.”

          Swissshhhh slides the automatic doors to the entrance of Sainsbury’s and warm conditioned air and the buzz and din in the large hallway and aisles and the ching and ring of checkouts spills upon him; colour flushing into his drained cheeks and lips.

          Next to a cardboard stall with the banner ‘Get Your Sainsbury Reward Card Here’ a salesman steadies the plastic biro on the clip of his clipboard, adjusts his tie, and strolls over, holding eye contact. I know your game mate, Mr Peacock thinks, veering away from the sales man . . . .  

          “Good afternoon, Sir. Can I interest you in our limited offer, Sainsbury Loyalty card--”

          “Sorry. No time.” A man can’t go anywhere these days without giving a name and number like the bloody Gestapo in the war it is....

          At the top of the Fruit and Veg aisle a mother struggles to tuck a small boy into the child seat of the shopping trolley.

          “David, David,” she wags her finger, “I’m warning you! For the last time. Sit still! ” 

          A sign on a plastic stick, pinned into astro-turf says: Asparagus. 1 Ib for ₤1.99.

          Blimey that’s gone up five pee, he thinks, clenching his buttocks involuntarily. Apples, carrots, tangerines, aubergines lie in shiny bags and open boxes, the writing on the note is so bloody small he can hardly make it out, what’s first on the list?

          The boy kicks his feet near the mothers face; she struggles to pin down his legs. “Let me down! Let me down! I want to come down!” he screams.

          “I’ll give you bloody what for in a minute, if you don’t do damn well do as I tell you.” The mother raises her fist.

          They certainly don’t bring ‘em up like they used to I tell you that for nothing children should be seen and not heard, mum always said (a muffled slap sounds the along the aisle).

          “Owwa!” cries the boy.

          The little bugger had it coming . . . .  

          “Honestly Timothy, don’t make such a racket.”

          And mother had been firm but fair. He remembers: standing in Mother’s  white-walled bedroom, the chipboard wall paper cratered like the surface of the moon, and so cold goose pimples pock his clenched buttocks, making his teeth chatter and legs shiver as he waits, with his shorts dropped around his grey ankle socks. Bent over, he sees mother coiling the thick leather belt tightly around her fist. “It hurt me, more than it hurt you”, she often said afterwards, tipping bottle of witch-hazel against the white cotton gauze to dab the red wheals. And did anyone wonder why he hadn’t written or visited, since he left home?   

          The trolley drags a little to the right, and he compensats by over-steering to the left. The Spanish tomatoes and organic cucumbers are here, as well as the leaf-tufted carrots, their bright sticks angled among the straw lined box, now did Mrs Kirby want the heads still on ‘em or the economy ones in a bag?--How did it go again that peculiar dream and that’s another pair of sweat-soaked pyjamas to put in the washing machine; The image came faintly: sitting on the toilet, trousers around the ankles, straining to eject a stool he can’t release, then the toilet had flooded excrement and coins every where (the alarm rang at that point)--He pops a pack of carrots in the basket.

          Fortunately, the checkout girl works the queue quickly. “That’s fifty nine pounds and eighty six pence. How would you like to pay?” The cashier girl taps her wrist on the scanner, coolly gazing at him a moment. His weak eyes fleetingly meet the intimacy of hers, then dart to the refuge of the floor. The unsettling contact brings a trickle of sweat to his forehead which he wipes off with a woollen. She hands him the card back, gazing at him in curiosity. “Do you have a reward card, Sir?”

          That young woman in the queue behind--she wore no bra, you could tell by the lack of straps near the petite mounds under her cashmere jumper--turned from the magazine, to look at the little girl who had picked up a mars bar in the sweet section. “Amy, put that away, dear, we don’t want to spoil our dinner now, do we?” How nice to have a daughter in a pretty blue print dress May or even Gloria would be a beautiful name now and would you like me to swing you faster Gloria no papa that’s high enough thank you sweet laughter echoes back as she swings her throat back and kicks her legs straight out papa look--

          “Sign here.” The cashier girl flips over his credit card, peering at the small tight signature with its jagged edges. She turns to the woman in the queue behind, moving to take his place. “Have a nice day,” she says to no one in particular.

          At Mrs Kirby’s house, the shopping is packed away in the kitchen cupboards in a jiffy (the boys don’t help again). Balancing a tray of mugs of tea and buttered scones in one hand, he is about to enter the living room, when he stops, hearing muffled voices through the cheap teak wood panelling of the door:

          “An odd fish . . . . I’ll tell you that for nothing.”

“Queer as they get, Lilly, only yesterday I was telling our . . . . across the road--”

“For the love of god, I don’t know why she puts up with him . . . . I said from the start no good would come of it, didn’t I, Bett?”

“That you did, Lilly, that you did.”

Who are they talking about? he wonders, coughs loudly, and turns the door handle. 

“Hallo, mum”. He nods to the other old woman who sits, reclining in the arm chair by the mantel piece. “Betty.”

“Alan.” Betty returns the greeting coldly.  

Mrs Kirby sits straight backed, enthroned upon her arm chair. She appears to study the upturned cards fanned in a semi-circle on a small table before her. Spying the tray she smacks her lips together. “Ah! Bless you, my son. A cuppa - just what the doctor ordered.”

Mr Peacock places the steaming mugs of tea gently down on the cork mat. Mrs Kirby rummages about in a black pearl studded handbag. “What do I owe yer?”

          “Fifty nine, eighty six.”

          A pair of bifocals perched upon the crook of her nose, Mrs Kirby studies the receipt he has given here. “That’s a bargain, considering. You didn’t forget the turkey now, did yer, son?”

          “Got the last one, on special offer it was, good job I went when I did. Must a saved meself a bomb. Reckon a good fifty pee, or two at least.”

          “Good on yer, son.” Mrs Kirby looks at Mrs Betty, “Hear, what’d I tell you Bett? Can you find a better son-in-law this side of the Bow Bells, or can’t ya?”

          “That you can’t Lill,” said Mrs Betty.

          “Did you get the Bonios for Diane?” Mrs Kirby asked Mr Peacock.

          “All packed away.” He stands straight, clenching his buttocks involuntarily, the coins jingling in his front pockets as he fishes out change for her. And then he lays the coins in neat, orderly rows, near the cards on the table: He lays each coin queen side up. First placing the bronze pennies and two peas in rows. Then beneath that, the silver five and ten pence pieces. And under that row, a third row of fifty pence pieces. He make sure each coin touches and with slower gestures, counting to make sure, he lays the bigger gold pound coins.

          As he does so, the white leather of the arm chair creaked and Mrs Kirby leans one elbow forward on the arm rest to observe him better out the corner of her eye: That bent back, his miserly ways, eyes that-never-so-much-as-look-at-you, no spine about the man, she thought.

          When he was finished counting, Mrs Kirby prods a coin here and there with one fleshy gnarled finger, lips silently counting until she is satisfied. Then, keeping her gaze on the cards she says, “Bless you, you are a love.”

          She sips her tea, looks at Mrs Betty obliquely and said, “He’s such a nice boy, isn’t he Bett?

          “I wouldn’t know what you’d do without him, you can’t ask more of a man, can you now?”

          “You certainly can’t and not after a hard days work ‘n all.”

          Mr Peacock bows his head, the pleasure of pleasing Mrs Kirby breaking out into a tight thin smile. “Well, I best be getting on with our dinner then.”  

          “Would you be a love and do me some of those nice fish fingers, with peas,” she smacks her lips loudly, “I don’t ‘alf fancy some of ‘em with a bit a father brown’s sauce on ‘em.”

          Mrs Kirby picks up a card from the pile, turns away from him and says, “Did you go last, Bett, or is it my turn?”

          After he and Mrs Kirby ate the micro waved dinner in the lounge, he sits reclined in an arm chair at the back corner of the living room. On the telly, the man on the nature program blabbers nonsense, about the spindly crab he holds upturned in his hand. “The spider crab is reclusive to this island, and rarely wanders far from its habitat, except that is, to mate. They live alone in their abode among the sea weed,” (The camera pans to show a crevice among sea weed in a rock pool), “and urchins and are expert foragers.” Practical creatures them crabs, for starters they got everything they need on their backs, how nice to be a crab you never worry about rent--Janine sent down the food again, when on earth would she get out of bed, what can one do, she’s sick after all . . . .  

          The roman numerals of the clock above the pier glass of the mantel piece say: five to ten. A peek through the French curtains show a gloomy fog in the descending twilight, the drops of condensation on the window pane, a cold walk home. The familiar dread rises in the pit of his stomach, it always does when he thinks of leaving for the cold house in Ilford Lane.

          Considering the freezing fog, it isn’t bad going getting home in under an hour and a half. And home is easy to recognize: the white washed windows on the ground floor gives it away. The hedge about the neat rows of roses needs trimming and the garden gate groans as it swung open. In the kitchen, the dim phosphorous glare of the mini fridge-freezer light clicks on as the door rattles open with a suck of vacuum. There, he thought, that’s the butter and milk on the top shelf next to the apricot jam that’s running out and the salami-pizza and quick-bake-lasagne that only takes twenty minutes in the top of the freezer compartment blimey if I see any more of that I’ll go ruddy crazy.

          On the Formica kitchen table, the Essex Chronicle lies open, at the advert for a Brink’s-Mat Courier; and to be looking for a job like that at my age but then it was bloody Maggies fault the docks have lost out to the Japs and the Koreans we might have been kept on at the yard. . . .

          The kettle begins bubbling as the plug switch flicks on. He thought of the double bed upstairs which was still unmade, and he imagines Janine in silk dressing gown, standing at the top of the banisters, asking sleepily: “Did you have a nice day at the docks, love?”-- Thwweeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuppp (the kettle boils).

          Counting the small change he poured out from the jar, onto the kitchen table, he notices he is ten pence short. He bends, stiffly, on his hands and knees, poking around on the dusty floor along the back of the radiator (turned off to save heat)--As he packed the turkey in Mrs Kirby’s freezer Janine stormed into the kitchen, pills rattling in her dressing gown, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I don’t want you here any more. Do you understand?”--Perhaps the coin fell under the side board as I switched the kettle on, he thinks.

          His breath mists in the bedroom and he changes into his pyjamas in a darkened room, (the light was off to save electricity) lighted only by the occasional sweeping headlight of a passing car. He lies on the cold shell of the king size bed listening to the traffic whish past on the dual carriage way outside. Be just the biscuit to have a little terrier a dog to keep you company but what with the price of dog food these days it would cost an arm and a leg must be at least a pound or two for a tin of it but taking it for a walk would be nice over Valentines Park--He pictures throwing a stick in Melboune field; the stick tumbling through the air and the terrier’s paws scampering after where he has just thrown it. “Good boy, good boy,” he says patting it on the head and taking the stick which the dog drops in front of him and its eyes follow his hands going into his pocket it’s brown eyes warm and bright expecting another chocolate button yes how nice a dog would be for a bit of company but a dog cost at least a good hundred or so and the price of dog food is scandalous--After the blast of Janine’s hysterics earlier that day, Mrs Kirby cowered under her shawl as he sat with her in the lounge. She had spoken loudly, her voice carrying upstairs, “I think it best if we let things cool down a while, and we stayed away until after New Year, don’t you think?” He had nodded. He pulls the snug white duvet cover under his chin. Why do I bother with running round her and them bloody kids?  

          It would be Christmas in two and half more weeks, he thinks. Christmas. Isn’t it just the best time of the year? Giving presents out, thinking of people, parcels of purple and silver, I was smart buying the gifts during the last January sales, wonder if they’ll like what I got ‘em? What I look forward to most is roast turkey sage, and onion stuffing, and cranberry sauce, after clinking sherry glasses and pulling Christmas crackers and wearing party hats, and watching the old favourites only fools and horses on the box, and a plate of Christmas pudding and brandy cream on yer lap, nice, the way the streamers spiral from the ceiling, almost broke me neck putting Santa on top of the Christmas tree, stroking the rough bristles of Bella’s warm fur two front paws curled under ribs that sway gently under her wheezing breath and quaffing the Irish Bailey’s and feeling the warm pour in t’ ya.

          But Christmas alone ain’t so bad, really, not when you get used to it. Some people get lonely, but you get used to it. He pictures himself in the bare walled room of his flat, watching Christmas repeats on the TV, eating lasagne out of the silver foil with a plastic fork and spoon--Mrs Kirby might have let me come. . . . but don’t be bothered about it, it’s a silly, little thing to worry about that means nothing. Many people spend a nice Christmas alone, and the telly keeps you so occupied you don’t even feel it.

          But as he drifts off into the cold, dark fog of his sleep he remembers the Santa, warm, chubby, and smiling, that he put on the top of the white Christmas tree of Mrs Kirby’s living room, and the gifts he tucked under the piano that they would open on Christmas day . . . .            

 --END--

Author's Note

Interconnected stories:

o For Your Own Good
o Under The Ginko Tree
o A Good Mother
o The Kirby Guest House
o Mr. Peacock goes to Sainsbury's
o The Visit

Reviews

[Vanessa Whiteley]

I did not read Cdnsurfer's review until I had posted my own in case it prejudiced my point of view. There are places where we seem to think alike and I agree with him about the 'along', although I quite like the following lines.

the traffic lights turn green, then the pedestrian signal rings, bee, bee, bee, bee, beep, it's bloody nippy out this morning and those clouds look threatening better get a move on before it rains, he thinks,

However, I agree that cutting Mr. Patel wouldn't hurt at all. However, I think that the relationship with his mother is significant and I wouldn't cut that but build on it. We both seem to like the scene with Mrs Kirby.

If you decide to edit this let me know and I'll read it again.

[Vanessa Whiteley]

1) Mr Peacock's character.

I think you have set yourself a task with this character as the centre of a story given that he is an insignificant, weedy, little man who has greasy balding hair and a bean-pole chest and wears polyester lumberjack shirts and denims - albeit, in my mind I sort of imagine him in frayed, black cotton trousers that need ironing. But then if he works at the docks�

The problem is that few people are going to care enough about him at first reading. He is neither likeable nor unpleasant enough despite his sleaziness 'willingness to go along with Mrs Kirby's plans to marry Janine off to him and thoughts like 'Bloody Indians are as bad as the Arabs'. That being so what happens to him is of no interest and the story does not grab one's attention as your others do. Having said that after a number of readings one begins to see that there is a depth to this character the more one thinks about him. Still it is true to say that for me he didn't make an immediate impact.

Placed more into the background he works well and serves to highlight Mrs Kirby's hypocrisy.

That bent back, his miserly ways, eyes that-never-so-much-as-look-at-you, no spine about the man, she thought.
When he was finished counting, Mrs Kirby prods a coin here and there with one fleshy gnarled finger, lips silently counting until she is satisfied. Then, keeping her gaze on the cards she says, "Bless you, you are a love."
She sips her tea, looks at Mrs Betty obliquely and said, "He's such a nice boy, isn't he Bett?

I think this part is excellent but there are some descriptions that for me seem awkward.


2) stream of consciousness, images and interruptions come across?



A spindly man, denims chopping in a hurried, clenched stride, grey stubble dotting pinched cheeks, so Mr Patel saw Mr Peacock, from under the archway of the Taj Mahal restaurant between the curling fingers of Mr Patel's menthol cigarette smoke.

Perhaps you are trying to place too many disparate images in one sentence.

� spindly man
� denims chopping in a hurried, clenched stride
� grey stubble dotting pinched cheeks
� the archway of the Taj Mahal restaurant
� the curling fingers of Mr Patel's menthol cigarette smoke

Moreover, the interruption that follows here given that it feels cluttered already does not work for me.

Above it all, the swell, the stink and the frenzy of the detritus below, clangs the town hall clock: nine, ten.
Bloody cabby almost run me over! Watch where yer going yer b*****d (a taxi, a swarthy faced man leaning forward in the driving seat, had darted out from under the car-park barrier). Bloody Indians are as bad as the Arabs, rates are going up again, that's the fourth time in a row, "The government doesn't give a fig about the man on the street", Jim said at work yesterday, resting to push up the visor of his welding mask, the din of the blue-orange blow torch making it hard to talk, "Since Maggie got in the country's going to the dogs."

Moreover, I don't really like the narrator interrupting to explain what had happened. And while I recognise that our thoughts don't follow in a nice neat stream the introduction of Jim just seems like extra clutter. After all in a very short space of time we have moved from Mr Patel, to Mr Peacock, the narrator and Jim at work and I guess you could even include the allusion to Maggie Thatcher, albeit, I quite like that.

I, also, like the comparison of him to a crab and this scuttling image seems consistent with Janine's comparison to a tarantula. Also, I think the description of him in bed wishing for affection from a dog that he is too miserly to buy is well done � I suspect that he would be as happy with a dog as with Janine if he can have the affection he craves.

3) Story and Plot

Story: Mr Peacock goes to Sainsbury to buy the turkey for Christmas returns to Mrs Kirby's home. He wants to be invited for Christmas. Janine who is mentally unbalanced becomes frenzied. Mrs Kirby tells Mr Peacock it is best that he should not return till after Christmas. He returns home to spend Christmas alone.

Plot: seems to centre around this pathetic little man who is eager to please in his desperate need for affection � Mrs Kirby addressing him as son is seeming particularly significant. He longs to be a part of something but partially his own self-defeating character means that he will never belong to anyone or have anyone belong to him � example the dog.

He strives to create a pleasant Christmas in his own miserly way buying presents the year before and reduced price turkey while he dreams of a typical family Christmas. His efforts to achieve more being symbolised in the Father Christmas atop the tree. All these dreams are ultimately futile as the woman who he would have married to create the dream family has been sent insane partially at the thought of marrying him. (Just taking a five minute break to watch another dysfunctional family - the Simpsons)

(I'm back.) The pace may be a little to ploddy at first - even if this is meant to reflect his walk it is a little too slow. Perhaps if you didn't begin with such a long paragraph, for example something like:


'I'll get the turkey on special offer in Sainsbury's'.
Mr Peacock says as he tramps along Belgrave Road past the King Neptunes with its line of customers spilling out the door onto the street. Their coats are wrapped against the biting North Sea winter wind. A greasy smell of salt and vinegar chips makes his mouth water and the town hall clock you can hear from a mile off gonged four, five....

Unless I have missed something shouldn't that be 'can' rather than 'could' in relation to the clock. If he can hear it.

There are multiple viewpoints from Mr Patel to Mrs Kirby and the intrusive narrator. The reader gains the impression that Mrs Kirby is just using him as she uses everyone else. He is excluded from the Christmas that he helped create. Ultimately, I feel that this is about loneliness but it could also be about mother son relationships given the episode with the little boy in the trolley.

While I am sure there is much that I have missed here I surmise much of this is Freudian and in particular the dream scene where:

The image came faintly: sitting on the toilet, trousers around the ankles, straining to eject a stool he can't release, then the toilet had flooded excrement and coins every where

While this could be sexual I get the impression that it there is suppose to be a connection here between Mr Peacock, expulsion and melancholia. But I don't know that much about psychoanalytical theory.

What feeling does he generate in me?
Is he deserving of sympathy? No he is too miserly and self-defeating but perhaps there is a sense of pathos about him.


5) What would you like to see added to this story, removed, enhanced?

Perhaps if you introduced more interplay with other characters � for example his mother, I'm guessing Mrs Kirby is a replacement mother - the fact that he calls her mum and she calls him son and their relationship at least within his own mind. I would like to see more interplay with other characters and particularly more about his relationship with his own mother. I think this is significant as is the toilet scene.

The thing I like best about your stories are like onions they have many layers and while this one did not make me cry there is a depth to it.

[Cdnsurfer]

Mr Peacock says he must get the turkey on special offer in Sainsbury's. Along Belgrave Road he tramps, [along � I think I'd drop this word as it doesn't add anything and actually causes some confusion, given the length of the sentence.] past King Neptunes with the line of customers spilling out the door onto the street; their coats wrapped against the biting North Sea winter wind; the greasy smell of salt and vinegar chips making his mouth water. The town hall clock you could hear from a mile off gonged four, five....
Against the kerb of the zebra crossing, the swollen crowd presses behind him, the traffic lights turn green, then the pedestrian signal rings, bee, bee, bee, bee, beep[.] [I]t's bloody nippy out this morning and those clouds look threatening[.] [B]etter get a move on before it rains, he thinks, shoving his fists deeper [inside � more clear] the wool lined front pocket of his Parka. [Since we have no indication of a traffic jam, I'd do this here -] [All along Ilford High Road, t]he traffic jam crawls by, winding up [the street]; a pair of fluffy dice [swing] from a rear view mirror in a beaten blue Ford Escort; a beet faced man in a dirty white transit van honks and waves his fist at the black Nissan in front with the 'My Porsche is in the garage' bumper sticker on the side; a double-decker bus is stopped in front of the Ilford Station, engine rumbling, the bus's doors hiss, ejecting, excrement like, a mass of elbow-jostling-commuters - among them a mother struggles to wedge her stroller through the tide (the traffic light turns red and the signal dies). [What I'm not liking about these long sentences, other than the fact they could be spliced at the semi-colons, is that it's a series of seeming unrelated observations. I think it would be fine if we have a stronger sense of who Mr. Peacock is, and what these mean to him, or to us.] Across the road, an attendant[] ferries a convoy of shopping trolleys across the open tarmac of Sainsbury's car park, his head down, one hand in the pocket, roach in the mouth.
A spindly man, denims chopping in a hurried, clenched stride, grey stubble dotting pinched cheeks, so Mr Patel saw Mr Peacock, from under the archway of the Taj Mahal restaurant between the curling fingers of Mr Patel's menthol cigarette smoke. [Not sure who the subject of that sentence was because it is an observation by Mr. Patel, whom we only now find out about. I think I'd restructure as: "Mr. Patel (subject immediately) saw Mr. Peacock from his vantage under the archway of the Taj Mahal restaurant; he seemed a spindly man, denims chopped in a hurry, clenched stride, grey stubble dotting pinched cheeks, as that is how he looked, thought Mr. Patel, rolling a menthol cigarette in his curled fingers.] Above it all, the swell, the stink and the frenzy of the detritus below, clangs the town hall clock: nine, ten. [This too feels to fragmented, perhaps, "Above the swell, the stink and frenzied detris below, the town hall clock clangs: nine, ten!"]
Bloody cabby almost run me over! Watch where yer going yer b*****d (a taxi, a swarthy faced man leaning forward in the driving seat, had darted out from under the car-park barrier) [Again, there's a disconnect here. Who said it? First Mr. Patel, then the cabbie, but it required re-reading to get that.]. Bloody Indians are as bad as the Arabs, rates are going up again, that's the fourth time in a row, "The government doesn't give a fig about the man on the street", Jim said at work yesterday, resting to push up the visor of his welding mask, the din of the blue-orange blow torch making it hard to talk, "Since Maggie got in the country's going to the dogs." [Too many POV shifts in the same paragraph. I'm not too worried about POV shifts, even shifting to omniscient, but this is a bit too much at once.]
Swissshhhh slides the automatic doors to the entrance of Sainsbury's and warm conditioned air and the buzz and din in the large hallway and aisles and the ching and ring of checkouts spills upon him; colour [flushes] into his drained cheeks and lips.
Next to a cardboard stall with the banner 'Get Your Sainsbury Reward Card Here' a salesman steadies the plastic biro on the clip of his clipboard, adjusts his tie, and strolls over, holding eye contact. I know your game mate, Mr Peacock thinks, veering away from the sales man . . . .
"Good afternoon, Sir. Can I interest you in our limited offer, Sainsbury Loyalty card -"
"Sorry. No time." A man can't go anywhere these days without giving a name and number like the bloody Gestapo in the war it is....
At the top of the Fruit and Veg aisle a mother struggles to tuck a small boy into the child seat of the shopping trolley.
"David, David," she wags her finger, "I'm warning you! For the last time. Sit still! "
A sign on a plastic stick, pinned into astro-turf says: Asparagus. 1 Ib for ₤1.99.
Blimey that's gone up five pee, he thinks, clenching his buttocks involuntarily. Apples, carrots, tangerines, aubergines lie in shiny bags and open boxes, the writing on the note is so bloody small he can hardly make it out, what's first on the list? [Seems to smoothen out here, once we get to Mr. Peacock again, which raises the question: do we need Mr. Patel at all?]
The boy kicks his feet near the mothers face; she struggles to pin down his legs. "Let me down! Let me down! I want to come down!" he screams.
"I'll give you bloody what for in a minute, if you don't [] damn well do as I tell you." The mother raises her fist.
They certainly don't bring 'em up like they used to I tell you that for nothing children should be seen and not heard, mum always said (a muffled slap sounds the along the aisle). [Is this Mr. Peacock thinking this?]
"Owwa!" cries the boy.
The little bugger had it coming . . . .
"Honestly Timothy, don't make such a racket."
And mother had been firm but fair. He remembers: standing in Mother's white-walled bedroom, the chipboard wall paper cratered like the surface of the moon, and so cold goose pimples pock his clenched buttocks, making his teeth chatter and legs shiver as he waits, with his shorts dropped around his grey ankle socks. Bent over, he sees mother coiling the thick leather belt tightly around her fist. "It hurt me, more than it hurt you", she often said afterwards, tipping bottle of witch-hazel against the white cotton gauze to dab the red wheals. And did anyone wonder why he hadn't written or visited, since he left home? [Ok, I don't know if the flashback is necessary. Though interesting, it seems to be only tangential related to the whole. I don't have problems with shifts, so long as they tie to the story immediately � so they are necessary. Here, I'm not sure we needed the scene, so much as Mr. Peacock's thoughts about it.]
The trolley drags a little to the right, and he ]compensates] by over-steering to the left. The Spanish tomatoes and organic cucumbers are here, as well as the leaf-tufted carrots, their bright sticks angled among the straw lined box, now did Mrs Kirby want the heads still on 'em or the economy ones in a bag? - How did it go again that peculiar dream and that's another pair of sweat-soaked pyjamas to put in the washing machine; The image came faintly: sitting on the toilet, trousers around the ankles, straining to eject a stool he can't release, then the toilet had flooded excrement and coins every where (the alarm rang at that point) - He pops a pack of carrots in the basket. [Who's Mrs. Kirby? I think we need a lead in, also, this would give us his motive for being in the grocery store in the first place. That should be lead in the first paragraph.]
Fortunately, the checkout girl works the queue quickly. "That's fifty nine pounds and eighty six pence. How would you like to pay?" The cashier girl taps her wrist on the scanner, coolly gazing at him a moment. His weak eyes fleetingly meet the intimacy of hers, then dart to the refuge of the floor. The unsettling contact brings a trickle of sweat to his forehead [that] he wipes off with a woollen. She hands him the card back, gazing at him in curiosity. "Do you have a reward card, Sir?"
That young woman in the queue behind - she wore no bra, you could tell by the lack of straps near the petite mounds under her cashmere jumper - turned from the magazine, to look at the little girl who had picked up a mars bar in the sweet section. "Amy, put that away, dear, we don't want to spoil our dinner now, do we?" How nice to have a daughter in a pretty blue print dress May or even Gloria would be a beautiful name now and would you like me to swing you faster Gloria no papa that's high enough thank you sweet laughter echoes back as she swings her throat back and kicks her legs straight out papa look - [To quick to move into his imagination. We need to tie it down a bit more first.]
"Sign here." The cashier girl flips over his credit card, peering at the small tight signature with its jagged edges. She turns to the woman in the queue behind, moving to take his place. "Have a nice day," she says to no one in particular. [I like this touch.]
At Mrs Kirby's house, the shopping is packed away in the kitchen cupboards in a jiffy (the boys don't help again). Balancing a tray of mugs of tea and buttered scones in one hand, he is about to enter the living room, when he stops, hearing muffled voices through the cheap teak wood panelling of the door:
"An odd fish . . . . I'll tell you that for nothing."
"Queer as they get, Lilly, only yesterday I was telling our . . . . across the road -"
"For the love of god, I don't know why she puts up with him . . . . I said from the start no good would come of it, didn't I, Bett?" [Bit fragmented here.]
"That you did, Lilly, that you did."
Who are they talking about? he wonders, coughs loudly, and turns the door handle.
"Hallo, mum". He nods to the other old woman who sits, reclining in the arm chair by the mantel piece. "Betty."
"Alan." Betty returns the greeting coldly.
Mrs Kirby sits straight backed, enthroned upon her arm chair. She appears to study the upturned cards fanned in a semi-circle on a small table before her. Spying the tray she smacks her lips together. "Ah! Bless you, my son. A cuppa - just what the doctor ordered."
Mr Peacock places the steaming mugs of tea gently down on the cork mat. Mrs Kirby rummages about in a black pearl studded handbag. "What do I owe yer?"
"Fifty nine, eighty six."
A pair of bifocals perched upon the crook of her nose, Mrs Kirby studies the receipt he has given here. "That's a bargain, considering. You didn't forget the turkey now, did yer, son?"
"Got the last one, on special offer it was, good job I went when I did. Must a saved meself a bomb. Reckon a good fifty pee, or two at least."
"Good on yer, son." Mrs Kirby looks at Mrs Betty, "Hear, what'd I tell you Bett? Can you find a better son-in-law this side of the Bow Bells, or can't ya?"
"That you can't Lill," said Mrs Betty.
"Did you get the Bonios for Diane?" Mrs Kirby asked Mr Peacock.
"All packed away." He stands straight, clenching his buttocks involuntarily, the coins jingling in his front pockets as he fishes out change for her. And then he lays the coins in neat, orderly rows, near the cards on the table: He lays each coin queen side up. First placing the bronze pennies and two peas in rows. Then beneath that, the silver five and ten pence pieces. And under that row, a third row of fifty pence pieces. He make sure each coin touches and with slower gestures, counting to make sure, he lays the bigger gold pound coins. [Ok, I like the characterization you're doing in here. Good. Seems this is the nearly finished scene.]
As he does so, the white leather of the arm chair creaked and Mrs Kirby leans one elbow forward on the arm rest to observe him better out the corner of her eye: That bent back, his miserly ways, eyes that-never-so-much-as-look-at-you, no spine about the man, she thought.
When he was finished counting, Mrs Kirby prods a coin here and there with one fleshy gnarled finger, lips silently counting until she is satisfied. Then, keeping her gaze on the cards she says, "Bless you, you are a love."
She sips her tea, looks at Mrs Betty obliquely and said, "He's such a nice boy, isn't he Bett?
"I wouldn't know what you'd do without him, you can't ask more of a man, can you now?"
"You certainly can't and not after a hard days work 'n all."
Mr Peacock bows his head, the pleasure of pleasing Mrs Kirby breaking out into a tight thin smile. "Well, I best be getting on with our dinner then."
"Would you be a love and do me some of those nice fish fingers, with peas," she smacks her lips loudly, "I don't 'alf fancy some of 'em with a bit a father brown's sauce on 'em."
Mrs Kirby picks up a card from the pile, turns away from him and says, "Did you go last, Bett, or is it my turn?"
After he and Mrs Kirby ate the micro waved dinner in the lounge, he sits reclined in an arm chair at the back corner of the living room. On the telly, the man on the nature program blabbers nonsense, about the spindly crab he holds upturned in his hand. "The spider crab is reclusive to this island, and rarely wanders far from its habitat, except that is, to mate. They live alone in their abode among the sea weed," (The camera pans to show a crevice among sea weed in a rock pool), "and urchins and are expert foragers." Practical creatures them crabs, for starters they got everything they need on their backs, how nice to be a crab you never worry about rent - Janine sent down the food again, when on earth would she get out of bed, what can one do, she's sick after all . . . . [I like that you're tying this in to the Kirby Guest House, and I like the metaphor you're driving at here.]
The roman numerals of the clock above the pier glass of the mantel piece say: five to ten. A peek through the French curtains show a gloomy fog in the descending twilight, the drops of condensation on the window pane, a cold walk home. The familiar dread rises in the pit of his stomach, it always does when he thinks of leaving for the cold house in Ilford Lane.
Considering the freezing fog, it isn't bad going getting home in under an hour and a half. And home is easy to recognize: the white washed windows on the ground floor gives it away. The hedge about the neat rows of roses needs trimming and the garden gate groans as it swung open. In the kitchen, the dim phosphorous glare of the mini fridge-freezer light clicks on as the door rattles open with a suck of vacuum. There, he thought, that's the butter and milk on the top shelf next to the apricot jam that's running out and the salami-pizza and quick-bake-lasagne that only takes twenty minutes in the top of the freezer compartment blimey if I see any more of that I'll go ruddy crazy.
On the Formica kitchen table, the Essex Chronicle lies open, at the advert for a Brink's-Mat Courier; and to be looking for a job like that at my age but then it was bloody Maggies fault the docks have lost out to the Japs and the Koreans we might have been kept on at the yard. . . .
The kettle begins bubbling as the plug switch flicks on. He thought of the double bed upstairs which was still unmade, and he imagines Janine in silk dressing gown, standing at the top of the banisters, asking sleepily: "Did you have a nice day at the docks, love?" - Thwweeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuppp (the kettle boils).
Counting the small change he poured out from the jar, onto the kitchen table, he notices he is ten pence short. He bends, stiffly, on his hands and knees, poking around on the dusty floor along the back of the radiator (turned off to save heat) - As he packed the turkey in Mrs Kirby's freezer Janine stormed into the kitchen, pills rattling in her dressing gown, "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I don't want you here any more. Do you understand?" - Perhaps the coin fell under the side board as I switched the kettle on, he thinks.
His breath mists in the bedroom and he changes into his pyjamas in a darkened room, (the light was off to save electricity) lighted only by the occasional sweeping headlight of a passing car. He lies on the cold shell of the king size bed listening to the traffic whish past on the dual carriage way outside. Be just the biscuit to have a little terrier a dog to keep you company but what with the price of dog food these days it would cost an arm and a leg must be at least a pound or two for a tin of it but taking it for a walk would be nice over Valentines Park - He pictures throwing a stick in Melboune field; the stick tumbling through the air and the terrier's paws scampering after where he has just thrown it. "Good boy, good boy," he says patting it on the head and taking the stick which the dog drops in front of him and its eyes follow his hands going into his pocket it's brown eyes warm and bright expecting another chocolate button yes how nice a dog would be for a bit of company but a dog cost at least a good hundred or so and the price of dog food is scandalous - After the blast of Janine's hysterics earlier that day, Mrs Kirby cowered under her shawl as he sat with her in the lounge. She had spoken loudly, her voice carrying upstairs, "I think it best if we let things cool down a while, and we stayed away until after New Year, don't you think?" He had nodded. He pulls the snug white duvet cover under his chin. Why do I bother with running round her and them bloody kids?
It would be Christmas in two and half more weeks, he thinks. Christmas. Isn't it just the best time of the year? Giving presents out, thinking of people, parcels of purple and silver, I was smart buying the gifts during the last January sales, wonder if they'll like what I got 'em? What I look forward to most is roast turkey sage, and onion stuffing, and cranberry sauce, after clinking sherry glasses and pulling Christmas crackers and wearing party hats, and watching the old favourites only fools and horses on the box, and a plate of Christmas pudding and brandy cream on yer lap, nice, the way the streamers spiral from the ceiling, almost broke me neck putting Santa on top of the Christmas tree, stroking the rough bristles of Bella's warm fur two front paws curled under ribs that sway gently under her wheezing breath and quaffing the Irish Bailey's and feeling the warm pour in t' ya.
But Christmas alone ain't so bad, really, not when you get used to it. Some people get lonely, but you get used to it. He pictures himself in the bare walled room of his flat, watching Christmas repeats on the TV, eating lasagne out of the silver foil with a plastic fork and spoon - Mrs Kirby might have let me come. . . . but don't be bothered about it, it's a silly, little thing to worry about that means nothing. Many people spend a nice Christmas alone, and the telly keeps you so occupied you don't even feel it.
But as he drifts off into the cold, dark fog of his sleep he remembers the Santa, warm, chubby, and smiling, that he put on the top of the white Christmas tree of Mrs Kirby's living room, and the gifts he tucked under the piano that they would open on Christmas day . . .

[As a character study, this is good, for we get to see Mr. Peacock and his personality very clearly. I would love to see how you fuse the two stories.]