FINALLY FREE
Callum McGee
If you want a free trial in Hell, work in retail.
Despite having apraxia in my eye, my numbed eyelid twitches when I hear Ms Mallory. After a day of scanning countless items and straining my wrists serving Aldi customers, she’s returned. Ms Mallory’s withered walking stick clomps down the empty shop aisles a minute before closing.
Manager Robin pokes their shaved blond head out of the bagging area office. ‘Do you need me there?’ The blue ribbon badge pinned to their shirt is as bright and allaying as police car lights.
Before I could reply, a milk bottle crashed onto my counter conveyor belt.
‘Perfect timing, aye lad?’ Ms Mallory’s smoke-singed taunt makes my eyelid spasm. ‘What, still too big-headed to talk to Nanny?’
Ms Mallory’s leopard-spotted fur coat emanates a pungent stench of cat piss and cider. But it’s her wolf-head walking-stick handle which makes me cringe. Patches of rust cover its once-sharp silver teeth like bronze blood. Its mouth agape, waiting for another bite.
‘You don’t deserve the title, “Nan”.’
Ms Malory grabs her four-pint milk bottle, slamming it down. The plastic explodes, spilling chilled milk down the counter escalator.
‘Don’t speak to me like that, prick!’ Ms Mallory lunges over the counter, swinging the handle at me. ‘Don't think you’re too old for a clobbering.’
The wolf's snout narrowly misses my good eye.
Ms Mallory shrieks, her obese form dragged off my counter.
Manager Robin is on her, turning the older woman onto her stomach in a prone position. ‘Stay down!’
Ms Mallory struggles, whimpering, ‘Please, get off, you’re hurting me.’
Manager Robin restrains her arms behind her back. ‘The cameras recorded everything.’ says Manager Robin, kicking Ms Mallory’s walking stick away. Under ceiling tile lights, the manager’s blue ribbon badge glints like clear quartz, reading ‘Child Abuse Awareness’. ‘Con, call 999. You can’t go on like this. Say former officer Robin Barnes has an intoxicated woman under citizen’s arrest for attempted battery.’
I pick up Ms Mallory’s walking stick. The handle sends a chill through my fingers.
‘Conner, please.’ Ms Mallory’s voice breaks, tears soaking her wrinkly cheeks. ‘Nanny didn’t mean to.’
A speech burned into my memory.
With trembling hands, I clench her old oak cane, the architect of years of sore bruises. I raise it and slam the wolf’s head hard onto the shop floor – the wood splinters in half.