The Leg of Lamb

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 519.

Text 4

Read the text one more time and find the word or expression that match the definition below.

a. clean and tidy __________________________

b. to try to find __________________________

c. to result __________________________

d. to clean or dry __________________________

e. at the very least __________________________

f. no possibility __________________________

1. Read the story ‘The Leg of Lamb' and write what the setting, the conflict and the resolution of the story are.

Setting:

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Conflict:

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Resolution:

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R. Dahl (abridged)

The room was warm and clean, the curtains were drawn and two table lamps were lit. Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home from work.

Now and again she looked up at the clock – she wanted to please herself with the thought that each minute that went made her nearer the time when he would come. The position of her head as she bent over her sewing was curiously peaceful. Her skin had a wonderful clearness, since there were only three more months before the birth of her child.

When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen, and a few moments later, at the usual time, she heard the tires on the drive. She stood up and went forward to kiss him as he came in.

‘Hello darling,' she said.

‘Hello darling,' he answered.

She took his coat and hung it in the hall. Then she made the drinks, and soon she was back again in her chair with the sewing, and he was in the other, opposite, holding the tall glass with both his hands. She was happy to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long hours alone in the house.

‘Tired, darling?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I'm tired,' And as he spoke, he did an unusual thing. He lifted his glass and drained it in one swallow although there was still half of it left. He paused a moment, leaned forward in the chair, then he got up and went slowly over to fetch himself another drink.

‘I'll get it!' she cried, jumping up.

‘Sit down,' he said. ‘I've got something to tell you.'

She had no idea that in the next two minutes her whole life was going to change.

‘This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I'm afraid,' he said. ‘But I hope you won't blame me too much.'

And he told her. It didn't take long, and she stayed very still through it all, watching him with a kind of dazed horror as he went further and further away from her with each word.

‘So there it is,' he added. ‘And I know it's kind of a bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn't any other way. Of course I'll give you money and see you're looked after.'

Her first reaction was not to believe any of it, to reject it all.

‘I'll get the supper,' she managed to whisper, and this time he didn't stop her.

When she walked across the room she couldn't feel anything at all. Everything was automatic now – down the steps to the cellar, the light switch, the deep freeze, the hand inside the cabinet taking hold of the first object it met. She lifted it out, and looked at it - a leg of lamb.

All right then, they would have lamb for supper. She carried it upstairs, holding the thin bone-end of it with both her hands, and as she went through the living-room, she saw him standing over by the window with his back to her, and she stopped.

‘For God's sake,' he said, hearing her, but not turning round. ‘Don't make supper for me. I'm going out.'

At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.
She stepped back, waiting. He crashed to the carpet.

The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of the shock. She began thinking very fast. She carried the meat into the kitchen, placed it in a pan, turned the oven on high, and shoved it inside. Then she washed her hands, took her coat and went out the back door, down the garden, into the street.

It wasn't six o'clock yet and the lights were still on in the grocery shop.

‘Hello Sam,' she said, smiling at the man behind the counter.

‘Good evening, Mrs. Maloney. How're you?'

‘I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can of peas.'

‘Patrick's decided he's tired and doesn't want to eat out tonight,' she told him. ‘We usually go out on Thursdays, you know, and now he's caught me without any vegetables in the house.'

‘Then how about meat, Mrs. Maloney?'

‘No, I've got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lamb from the freezer. I don't much like cooking it frozen, Sam, but I'm taking a chance on it this time. You think it'll be all right?'

‘Personally,' the grocer said, ‘I don't believe it makes any difference. Do you want these potatoes?'
'Oh yes, that'll be fine. Two of those.'

When everything was wrapped and she had paid, she put on her brightest smile and said, ‘Thank you, Sam. Goodnight.'

‘Goodnight, Mrs. Maloney. And thank you.'

And now, she told herself as she hurried back, she was returning home to her husband and he was waiting for his supper; and she must cook it well, and make it as tasty as possible because the poor man was tired; and if, when she entered the house, she found anything unusual or terrible, then naturally it would be a shock and she'd go crazy with grief. Of course, she wasn't expecting to find anything. She was just going home with the vegetables on Thursday evening to cook supper for her husband.

That's the way, she told herself. Do everything right and natural. Keep things absolutely natural and there'll be no need for any acting at all. Therefore, when she entered the kitchen by the back door, she was singing to herself and smiling.

‘Patrick!' she called. ‘How are you, darling?'

She put the parcel down on the table and went through into the living room; and when she saw him lying there on the floor, it really was rather a shock. All the old love for him came back to her, and she ran over to him, knelt down beside him, and began to cry her heart out. It was easy.

A few minutes later she got up and phoned the police station.

The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front door, two policemen walked in.

‘Is he dead?' she cried.

‘I'm afraid he is. What happened?'

Briefly, she told her story about going out to the grocer and coming back to find him on the floor. While she was talking, crying and talking, sergeant Noonan discovered some dried blood on the dead man's head. He showed it to the other policeman who got up at once and hurried to the phone.

Soon, other men began to come into the house. The detectives kept asking her a lot of questions. She told her story again, this time right from the beginning, when Patrick had come in.

‘Which grocer?' one of the detectives asked.

She told him, and he turned and whispered something to the other detective who immediately went outside into the street.

In fifteen minutes he was back with a page of notes, and there was more whispering.

Later, one of the detectives came up and sat beside her. Did she know, he asked, of anything in the house that could have been used as the weapon? Would she have a look around to see if anything was missing - a very heavy tool. She said, there might be some things like that in the garage.
The search went on. She knew that there were other policemen in the garden all around the house. It began to get late, nearly nine o'clock. The four men searching the rooms seemed to be getting tired, and a little annoyed.

Sergeant Noonan wandered into the kitchen, came out quickly and said, ‘Look, Mrs. Maloney. You know that oven of yours is still on, and the meat still inside.'

‘Oh dear me!' she cried. ‘So it is! Would you do me a small favor – you and these others?'
'We can try, Mrs. Maloney.'

‘Well,' she said. ‘Here you all are, helping to catch the man who killed my husband. You must be terrible hungry by now because it's long past supper time. Why don't you eat up that lamb that's in the oven? It'll be cooked just right by now.'

‘It's not strictly allowed,' Sergeant Noonan said.

‘Please,' she begged. ‘Please eat it. Personally I couldn't eat a thing. But it's all right for you. Then you can go on with your work again afterwards.'

They were clearly hungry, and in the end they were persuaded to go into the kitchen and help themselves. The woman stayed where she was, listening to them speaking among themselves.

‘Have some more, Charlie?'

‘No. Better not finish it.'

‘She wants us to finish it. She said so. She won't eat it.'

‘Okay then. Give me some more.'

‘That's a big bar the murderer has used,' one of them was saying. ‘The doc says his skull was smashed all to pieces just like from a very heavy hammer.'

‘That's why it should be easy to find.'

‘Exactly what I say.'

‘Whoever did it, they're not going to carry a thing like that around with them longer than they need.'

‘Personally, I think it's somewhere in the house'.

‘Probably right under our noses. What you think, Jack?'

And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to laugh.

(Abridged from http://www.classicshorts.com)