The Cook and The Giant
In a tiny pub I ordered my lunch and a pint of bitter from the barman and sat in the corner of the little room to watch the passing parade. Five minutes later a woman in her mid-forties, whom I soon ascertained to be the head cook, trundled out between flapping swing doors a little way from where I sat. She was not happy, and she continued the conversation she had been having with a person whom she had left in the kitchen behind her, oblivious to the fact that she was walking through the bar on her own.
"No, Kevin. No, no, no! I will not be blackmailed in this manner. Try as you might, you will not crack me this time." Suddenly, the swing doors swished apart again, and a giant - clearly the object of her displeasure - stepped through them. The ceilings of this Tudor building were admittedly low, but the lumbering behemoth that now stomped after the woman was about seven-and-a-half-feet tall, and nearly as wide. He stooped awkwardly under the black Elizabethan ceiling beams. He was wearing tight grey shorts and I could see his massive, chunky calves straining as he propelled himself clumsily across the groaning oak floorboards, his clomping, boat-sized feet pushing the cheap leather of his shoes to bursting point. He grunted in monosyllables to the woman.
"It's all very well for you to ask your father for things behind my back. And it's all very well for him to be the big hero and buy you what you want without a by-your-leave or without asking me if it's all right. But you are old enough to understand what's what. You aren't a baby any more, you are almost fifteen, for God's sake." The lummox was, I now saw, wearing an enormous school uniform, and was, in fact, a mere schoolboy, although one of preternatural proportions.
"But oi TOLL you!", he growled, "Oi ain't bin rahnd to Dad's place all week! Oi never asked 'im for shit, 'av oi? Are you fuckin' loopy, or somefin'?" The mother just shook her head in exasperation and stormed back into the kitchen, followed by the mega-child, who pushed open the swing doors delicately with his foot-long index finger and stomped in after her.
"No, Kevin. No, no, no! I will not be blackmailed in this manner. Try as you might, you will not crack me this time." Suddenly, the swing doors swished apart again, and a giant - clearly the object of her displeasure - stepped through them. The ceilings of this Tudor building were admittedly low, but the lumbering behemoth that now stomped after the woman was about seven-and-a-half-feet tall, and nearly as wide. He stooped awkwardly under the black Elizabethan ceiling beams. He was wearing tight grey shorts and I could see his massive, chunky calves straining as he propelled himself clumsily across the groaning oak floorboards, his clomping, boat-sized feet pushing the cheap leather of his shoes to bursting point. He grunted in monosyllables to the woman.
"It's all very well for you to ask your father for things behind my back. And it's all very well for him to be the big hero and buy you what you want without a by-your-leave or without asking me if it's all right. But you are old enough to understand what's what. You aren't a baby any more, you are almost fifteen, for God's sake." The lummox was, I now saw, wearing an enormous school uniform, and was, in fact, a mere schoolboy, although one of preternatural proportions.
"But oi TOLL you!", he growled, "Oi ain't bin rahnd to Dad's place all week! Oi never asked 'im for shit, 'av oi? Are you fuckin' loopy, or somefin'?" The mother just shook her head in exasperation and stormed back into the kitchen, followed by the mega-child, who pushed open the swing doors delicately with his foot-long index finger and stomped in after her.
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