the custard skin stabbing

every sunday, my nan used to cook a ‘proper’ sunday roast. along with all the usual trimmings, she would also prepare a bowl of birds custard that she would leave to cool before serving with tinned fruit as dessert.

every week, my grandad (ernie) would ask without fail whether he could have the skin off the custard. the skin would be the thick ‘crust-like’ top that was be formed as the custard was left to cool. every week, she would agree. it seemed that to everyone apart from ernie, it was a given that the skin was his.

one week however, his desire to have the skin got the better of him. instead of waiting until finishing the sunday roast, he decided to sneak into the kitchen and steal the skin before my nan had finished the cooking the main course.

thinking that he’d got one over on her, he took the skin off the custard and downed it in one. it could be that he maybe thought that eating the first skin would mean that another skin would form before dessert was served. however, his motivation on this particular week remains to this day unknown.

my nan though was far shrewder than people ever gave her credit for. as ernie was eating the skin, she had spotted the dirty deed and watched him out of the corner of her eye. as he then turned away from the kitchen, reveling in his glory, my nan pounced.

unfortunately for him, she was holding one of those large forks that chefs use to hold a joint of meat in place whilst they are carving it. with the war cry of, “you thieving bastard”, she stabbed him in the back – just below his left shoulder blade – with all the force she could muster.

the fork entered into him pretty easily and lots of blood exited him even more easily. he screamed with the pain of being stabbed. she screamed with the vast amounts of blood spurting from him. he then fell to the floor with the cry of “what the fuck was that” and my nan screamed in the belief that she had killed him.

pandemonium ensued with various relatives in the flat hearing the cries and rushing to 119 to see what had happened. with my nan, mum, aunt rose and lally all being there, as well as myself and of course ernie who was still bleeding on the floor, there was lots of swearing and shouting going on.

thankfully my nan showed some remorse but only after she’d realised that she hadn’t killed her husband. her remorse though took the form of her asking him not to report her to the police or go to the hospital for treatment (despite the fact that he probably needed a couple of stitches in the still bleeding wound).

as for ernie, he learnt his lesson and never stole the custard skin again.