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#Post#: 5--------------------------------------------------
[Share] Lamb to the slaughter by Roald Dahl
By: KaunLeon Date: May 11, 2013, 9:46 am
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The room was warm, the curtains were closed, the two table lamps
were lit. On the cupboard behind her there were two glasses and
some
drinks. Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home
from work.
Now and again she glanced at the clock, but without anxiety: She
merely wanted to satisfy herself that each minute that went by
made it
nearer the time when he would come homd. As she bent over her
sewing, she was curiously peaceful. This was her sixth month
expecting a
child. Her mouth and her eyes, with their new calm look, seemed
larger and darker than before.
When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen,
and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the car
tires on the
stones outside, the car door closing, footsteps passing the
window, the key turning in the lock. She stood up and went
forward to kiss him
as he entered.
"Hello, darling," she said.
"Hello," he answered.
She took his coat and hunt it up. Then she made the drinks, a
strong one for him and a weak one for herself; and soon she was
back again
in her chair with the sewing, and he was in the other chair,
holding the tall glass, rolling it gently so that the ice
knocked musically against
the side of the glass.
For her, this was always a wonderful time of day. She knew he
didn't want to speak much until the first drink was finished,
and she was
satisfied to sit quietly, enjoying his company after the long
hours alone in the house. She loved the warmth that came out of
him when they
were alone together. She loved the shape of his mouth, and he
especially liked the way he didn't complain about being tired.
"Tired, darling?"
"Yes," he signed. "I'm thoroughly exhausted. And as he spoke, he
did an unusual thing. He lifted his glass and drank it down in
one swallow
although there was still half of it left. He got up and went
slowly to get himself another drink."
"I'll get it!" she cried, jumping up.
"Sit down," he said.
When he came back, she noticed that the new drink was a very
strong one. She watched him as he began to drink.
"I think it's a shame," she said, "that when someone's been a
policeman as long as you have, he still has to walk around all
day long." He
didn't answer. "Darling," she said, "If you're too tired to eat
out tonight, as we had planned, I can fix you something. There's
plenty of meat
and stuff in the freezer." Her eyes waited to an answer, a
smile, a nod, but he made no sign.
"Anyway, " she went on. "I'll get you some bread and cheese."
"I don't want it," he said.
She moved uneasily in her chair. "But you have to have supper. I
can easily fix you something. I'd like to do it. We can have
lamb. Anything
you want. Everything's in the freezer."
"Forget it," he said.
"But, darling, you have to eat! I'll do it anyway, and then you
can have it or not, as you like."
She stood up and put placed her sewing on the table by the lamp.
"Sit down," he said. "Just for a minute, sit down." It wasn't
until then
that she began to get frightened.
"Go on," he said. "Sit down." She lowered herself into the
chair, watching him all the time with large, puzzled eyes. He
had finished his
second drink and was staring into the glass.
"Listen," he said. "I've got something to tell you."
"What is it, darling? What's the matter?"
He became absolutely motionless, and he kept his head down.
"This is going to be a big shock to you, I'm afraid," he said.
"But I've thought about it a good deal and I've decided that the
only thing to do
is to tell you immediately." And he told her, It didn't take
long, four of five minutes at most, and she sat still through it
all, watching him with
puzzled horror.
"So there it is," he added. "And I know it's a tough time to be
telling you this, but there simply wasn't any other way. Of
course, I'll give you
money and see that you're taken care of. But there really
shouldn't be any problem. I hope not, in any case. It wouldn't
be very good for my
job."
Her first instinct was not to believe any of it. She thought
that perhaps she'd imagined the whole thing. Perhaps, if she
acted as though she
had not heard him, she would find out that none of it had ever
happened.
"I'll fix some supper," she whispered. When she walked across
the room, she couldn't feel her feet touching the floor. She
couldn't feel
anything except a slight sickness. She did everything without
thinking. She went downstairs to the freezer and took hold of
the first object
she found. She lifted it out, and looked at it. It was wrapped
in paper, so she took off the paper and looked at again --- a
leg of lamb.
All right, then, they would have lamb for supper. She carried it
upstairs, held the thin end with both her hands. She went into
the living
room, saw him standing by the window with his back to her, and
stopped.
"I've already told you," he said "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 might as well have hit him with a steel bar.
She stepped back, waiting, and the strange thing was that he
remained standing there for at least four of five seconds. Then
he crashed
onto the carpet.
The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table
overturning, helped to bring her out of the shock. She came out
slowly, feeling cold and
surprised, and she stood for a few minutes, looking at the body,
still holding the piece of meat tightly with both hands.
All right, she told herself. So I've killed him.
It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a
sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a
detective, she knew
what the punishment would be. It made no difference to her. In
fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the
baby? What
were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they
kill them both -- mother and child? Did they wait until the baby
was born?
What did they do? Mary Maloney didn't know and she wasn't
prepared to take a chance.
She carried the meat into the kitchen, put it into a pan, turned
on the oven, and put the pan inside. Then she washed her hands,
ran
upstairs, sat down in front of the mirror, fixed her makeup, and
tried to smile.
The smile was rather peculiar. She tried again. "Hello, Sam,"
she said brightly, aloud. The voice sounded peculiar, too. "I
want some
potatoes, Sam. Yes, and perhaps a can of bean.s." That was
better. Both the smile and the voice sounded better now. She
practiced them
several times more. Then she ran downstairs, took her coat, and
went out the back door, through the garden into the street.
It wasn't six o'clock yet and the lights were still on in the
neighborhood grocery. "Hello, Sam," she said brightly, smiling
at the man in the
shop.
"Good evening, Mrs. Maloney. How are you?"
"I want some potatoes, please, Sam. Yes, and perhaps a can of
beans, too. Patrick's decided he's tired and he doesn't want to
eat out
tonight," she told him. "We usually go out on Thursdays, you
know, and now I don't have any vegetables in the house."
"Then how about some meat, Mrs. Maloney?" asked the grocer.
"No, I've got meat, thanks, I've got a nice leg of lamb, from
the freezer."
"Do you want these potatoes, Mrs. Maloney?
"Oh, yes, they'll be fine. Two pounds, please."
"Anything else?" The grocer turned his head to one side, looking
at her. "How about dessert? What are you going to give him for
dessert?
How about a nice piece of cake? I know he likes cake."
"Perfect," she said. "He loves it."
And when she had bought and paid for everything, she gave her
brightest smile and said, "Thank you, Sam. Good night."
And now, she told herself as she hurried back home, she was
returning to her husband and he was waiting for his supper. She
had to cook
it well and make it taste as good as possible, because the poor
man was tired; and if she found anything unusual or terrible
when she got
home, then it would be a shock and she would have to react with
grief and horror. Of course, she was not expecting to find
anything
unusual at home. She was just going home with the vegetables on
Thursday evening to cook dinner for husband.
That's the way, she told herself. Do everything normally. Keep
things absolutely natural and there'll be no need for acting at
all. As she
entered the kitchen by the back door, she was quietly singing to
herself.
"Patrick!" she called. "How are you, darling?"
She put the package on the table and went into the living room;
and when she saw him lying there on the floor, it really was 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 hard. It was easy. No
acting was
necessary.
A few minutes later, she got up and went to the phone. She knew
the number of the police station, and when the man at the other
end
answered, she cried to him. "Quick! Come quickly! Patrick's
dead."
"Who's speaking?"
"Mrs. Maloney. Mrs. Patrick Maloney."
"Do you mean that Patrick's dead?"
"I think so," she cried. "He's lying on the floor and I think
he's dead."
"We'll be there immediately," the man said.
The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front door,
two policeman walked in. She knew them both. She knew nearly all
the
men at the police station. She fell into Jack Noonan's arms,
crying uncontrollably. He put her gently into a chair.
"Is he dead?" she cried
"I'm afraid he is. What happened?"
In a few words she told her story about going to the grocer and
coming back, when she found him on the floor. While she was
crying and
talking, Noonan found some dried blood on the dead man's head.
He hurried to the phone.
Some other man began to arrive -- a doctor, two detectives, a
police photographer, and a man who knew about fingerprints. The
detectives
kept asking her a lot of questions. They always treated her
kindly. She told them how she'd put the meat into the oven --
"it's there now" --
and how she had gone to the grocer's for vegetables and how she
came back to find him lying on the floor.
The two detectives were exceptionally nice to her. They
researched the house. Sometimes Jack Noonan spoke to her gently.
He told her
that her husband had been killed by a blow to the back of the
head. They were looking for the weapon. The murderer might have
taken it
with him, but he might have thrown it away or hidden it. --
"It's the old story," he said. "Get the weapon, and you've got
the murderer."
Later, one of the detectives sat down beside her. Did she know,
he asked, of anything in the house that could have been used as
a
weapon? Would she look around to see if anything was missing.
The search went on. It began to get late -- it was nearly nine
o'clock. The men searching the rooms were getting tired. "Jack,"
she said,
"Would you like a drink? You must be extremely tired."
"Well," he answered. "It's not allowed by police rules, but
since you're a friend."
They stood around with drinks in their hands. The detectives
were uncomfortable with her and they tried to say cheering
things to her. Jack
Noonan walked into the kitchen, came out quickly, and said,
"Look, Mrs.Maloney. Did you know that your oven is still on, and
the meat is still
inside?"
"Oh," she said. "So it is! I'd better turn it off." She returned
with tearful eyes. "Would you do me a favor? Here you all are,
all godd friends
of Patrick's, and you're helping to catch the man who killed
him. You must be very hungry by now because it's long past your
supper time,
and I know that Patrick would never forgive me if I let you stay
in the house without offering you anything to eat. Why don't you
eat up the
lamb in the oven?"
"I wouldn't dream of it," Noonan said.
"Please," she begged. "Personally, I couldn't eat a thing, but
it'd be a favor to me if you ate it up. Then you can go on with
your work."
The detectives hesitated, but they were hungry, and in the end,
they went into the kitchen and helped themselves to supper. The
woman
stayed where she was and listened to them through the open door.
She could hear them speaking among themselves, and their voices
were thick because their mouths were full of meat.
"Have some more, Charlie."
"No, we'd better not finish it."
"She wants us to finish it. She said we ought to eat it up."
"That's a big bar the murderer must have used to hit poor
Patrick. The doctor says the back of his head was broken to
pieces.
"That's why the weapon should be easy to find."
"Exactly what I say."
"Whoever did it, he can't carry a weapon that big around with
him."
"Personally, I think the weapon is somewhere near the house."
"It's probably right under our noses. What do you think, Jack?"
And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to laugh.
#Post#: 7--------------------------------------------------
Re: [Share] Lamb to the slaughter by Roald Dahl
By: Gerald Date: May 11, 2013, 9:29 pm
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Very interesting story, but brings me lots of questions and
confusion too, like why Maloney laughed in the end, and what
Patrick told him at first?
#Post#: 8--------------------------------------------------
Re: [Share] Lamb to the slaughter by Roald Dahl
By: KaunLeon Date: May 12, 2013, 2:36 am
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Yeah I did some research about the story. People generally
believe that Patry is leaving Mary for another woman, but that
doesn't matter. Whatever Patrick told Mary, its a bad news and
trigger to the murder.
I believe that they have some conflicts too, "lamb" is like
"love". Mary told Patry he needs the lamb leg for supper but
Patry doesn't want it. And later on in the story Mary killed
Patry with the frozen lamb leg. So the "frozen" "love"(lamb) of
"suffer"(supper) murdered Patrick's face.
Yet, what to do with Jack? Spooky.
One does not simply kill your love, but Mary did that with ease
and she definitely love Patrick more than anyone else do. So
yeah, is Mary crazed or something?
#Post#: 10--------------------------------------------------
Re: [Share] Lamb to the slaughter by Roald Dahl
By: Gerald Date: May 12, 2013, 3:45 am
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[quote author=KaunLeon link=topic=5.msg8#msg8 date=1368344164]
Yeah I did some research about the story. People generally
believe that Patry is leaving Mary for another woman, but that
doesn't matter. Whatever Patrick told Mary, its a bad news and
trigger to the murder.
I believe that they have some conflicts too, "lamb" is like
"love". Mary told Patry he needs the lamb leg for supper but
Patry doesn't want it. And later on in the story Mary killed
Patry with the frozen lamb leg. So the "frozen" "love"(lamb) of
"suffer"(supper) murdered Patrick's face.
Yet, what to do with Jack? Spooky.
One does not simply kill your love, but Mary did that with ease
and she definitely love Patrick more than anyone else do. So
yeah, is Mary crazed or something?
[/quote]
Yup I agree probably Patrick told Mary he's going to leave her
or something.
And wow! Nice explanation there about the lamb you solved a lot
of my confusions :D
But what do you mean about Jack? What did he do?
Love can become a terrific power and can make someone totally
falls into it, as well as blinding his/her vision, making
him/her losing themselves. So, I am not surprised if Mary got
crazed because of loving Patrick too much.
#Post#: 12--------------------------------------------------
Jack
By: KaunLeon Date: May 13, 2013, 7:15 am
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Don't you think its a bit wierd about Jack? Jack is not the only
detective/policeman, yet he is the only one with name and stood
out a little bit more than others.
Btw, credits to mah classmates. I discussed with em and got this
so call "explanation"
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