The girls had been out running. Mavis’ cuckoo automatic from the trap to whistle noon this bitter Tuesday. Weak shafts of January sun on the table and her two friends seated for lunch. Clear liquid ran from cold red noses; when Lucy blew gently into a tissue, Bridget did likewise and they could smell the meat cooking in the kitchen.

There Mavis tumbling seven sausages in a pan, fat snapping and spitting from glistening skin. She lowered the gas, buttered some morning rolls and carried them to the conservatory.

‘Meat just coming dears,’ said Mavis, setting the rolls down on the table. Red candles and polished silver cutlery on a spotless white tablecloth. In the centre, a sponge cake bled with jam.

‘Can we help?’ asked Bridget, but Mavis was already in the kitchen lifting the sausages out of the frying pan onto a preheated tray. She covered the food in foil and stopped to look out at the garden where two grey squirrels harassed a magpie. She returned with the tray.

‘These are from Gold’s: ninety percent pork,’ said Mavis, slowly peeling back the foil so that heat rose in sunlit wisps.

‘Sausages! We deserve a treat,’ said Lucy. She was sitting on her hands and whilst leaning over to smell the meat noticed Bridget staring at the steam travelling up her nostrils.

Mavis used tongs to fill each roll, when Bridget said, ‘I am super-famished,’ her grip tightened and a sausage split.

‘Help yourself to sauce my lovelies,’ said Mavis, unscrewing the lid from a jar. She scooped out two pickled onions onto a small blue saucer.

Bridget watched the pickles roll about like eyeballs in a pool of vinegar. She thanked Mavis and glanced too long at those lips; she’s had them filled again, they’re bigger than the sausages! Bridget bit into the roll, warm fat dribbled down a corner of her mouth.

Lucy wondered if Bridget should be eating sausages, with her diet and all, recalling a time when Bridget claimed to be vegan. During their run, Bridget had wobbled far behind with Mavis’s West Highland Terrier for company. ‘Miami feels sorry for her,’ Mavis had said.

Lucy opened her roll and saw that the hot sausage had melted the butter, she added ketchup and said, ‘Mavis, these look fab.’

When Mavis sat down to eat, the little dog leapt up onto her lap, ‘Miami, no!’ she said. ‘She had leftover lobster this morning, greedy doggie.’ Mavis was delighted by the taste of the pork but wondered if she had made a mistake in sharing the source. The butcher was single and meeting Lucy might scupper her chances of a liaison with Marvin and his long fat fingers. Lucy was probably the best looking of the three but Mavis was secretly delighting in the fact that her latest hair dye (Blazing Bronze no.134) had turned out a multi-coloured mess; the sun hits it like a rainbow trout. ‘Lucy your hair looks great,’ Mavis had said.

When they had finished their rolls, they were all still very hungry. There was one sausage left in the tray and it rarely left their gaze. After tea poured from a fancy pot (porcelain, Moscow) the cuckoo chimed for one o’ clock and steam still rose from the juicy sausage.

‘Somebody must eat the last one,’ said Mavis, but the women shook their heads firmly, insisting that they were quite satisfied. They had another cup of tea and some Victoria sponge cake but still the sausage teased them. Mavis picked at crumbs, Lucy licked jam from her fingertips and Bridget was thinking about eating the pickles.

‘Bridget dear, your mascara…’ said Lucy, rubbing underneath her own eyes to indicate the area where Bridget’s make up ran down her face in little black thunderstorms.

‘Never mind,’ said Bridget, rubbing her cheeks vaguely with a napkin and smudging the mascara in smoky round streaks: she did not want to go to the bathroom to wash her face for fear of missing out on the sausage.

Mavis’ bladder was full of tea but she would not leave the table. She would eat the sausage later, when everyone had gone home.

Lucy was trying to form the correct sentence to ask for the sausage but the words would not come, she did not want to appear greedy.

Through the glass the sky had become overcast. A gloom hung over the garden and some crows landed on the dark grass. The cuckoo chimed a new hour but the women did not notice.

Mavis poured everyone more tea and asked, ‘Lucy, how is Lavinia getting on, still in London?’

‘Very well thank you. Sends her love. Still with that accounting firm. She’s trying to negotiate a better salary, she found out that a male colleague is better paid, even though she has more responsibilities.’

‘The Patriarchy,’ sighed Mavis.

Bridget also said, ‘The Patriarchy’, but a fraction later, so that her voice rang like a sad echo in an empty chapel.

‘How’s Tom, Bridget?’ asked Lucy, knowing fine well that Tom had moved out weeks ago and that Bridget had failed to let on.

‘Fine, fine, thanks,’ said Bridget nodding, smoothing her palms over the top of her thighs.

Silence.

The dog lay flat on the thick carpet with her eyes closed, still in the little tartan jacket from her run. In monochrome dreams her legs could not run as fast, they moved listlessly as if through treacle.

It was darker now. The women sat with their arms folded. Lucy looked at Mavis and thought that her roots looked black as ravens in a mess of yellow straw. Mavis looked at Bridget, her leggings were too tight and you could see her knickers through them. Bridget looked at Lucy and thought, red lipstick does not suit you dear, not with your skin tone.

They each stole another look at the still warm sausage.

The dog barked once.

It was night. Rain began to drum on the glass roof. Mavis lit the candles and yellow light splashed their faces. Soon came the sound of dripping within the conservatory; water was soaking Mavis’ stockings, running off the end of her chair, onto the carpet.

Nobody moved.

In the hall, the clock pendulum ticked left, right, left, right. Iron pine cones dangled like testicles. The little bird sprang out the door,

cuc-oo! cuc-oo! cuc-oo! cuc-oo! cuc-oo! cuc-oo!

From a wooden balcony, two figurines emerged to a mechanical Edelweiss. A miniature married couple joined hands (the groom’s head missing) and they waltzed to the metal melody, slowly spinning separately into the clock as the song ended.

Mavis began to sob softly. Lucy looked up at Bridget, whose eyes became wide and white among the smudged rings of mascara.

‘We could just share it,’ said Bridget.

The words were still leaving her mouth, floating out like poltergeist, when the dog leapt up on her lap, scrambled onto the table, grabbed the last sausage between its teeth and sped out of the room in a frenzied blur of panic.

Mavis began to shake with laughter, her face demented in candlelight.

Lucy popped the pickles into her mouth and chewed them bitterly.

March 2018