Free Polly by Jeff Smith

By then she had rumbled that something had gone wrong, but that didn’t deter her. Above all she wouldn’t allow any waste, so we kids had to eat the lot. But we never had it again – and all she ever said about it was ‘new fangled bloody cereals’.
    One Christmas a customer at the market gave Dad a goose as a present. We always used to have chicken at Christmas, you never saw turkey then. But this Christmas Dad proudly announced that he had a goose and that would be our dinner – Mum did her nut, she didn’t know how to cook the thing so ‘what’s the bloody point of that?’ she asked. Nothing would deter Dad, though.
    The goose, when it arrived, looked like the largest goose in the world, not that we had any idea how big a goose should be. Mum took one look at it and started up all over again – it was too big to fit in the oven, it was too big to fit in the dustbin, it was even too big to bury in our backyard (our backyard was no bigger than a postage stamp!), she didn’t know what to do with it, it was a silly idea, Dad could cook the bloody thing himself, and on and on and on. Dad did the only sensible thing and went off to the pub leaving Mum and us children to set about the goose. It barely fitted in the roasting tray, in fact it sat on the tray rather than in it. Having no idea what goose was like she decided to play safe, so first she liberally spread it with cooking fat, just in case it went dry, and then added some fat bacon to help keep it moist.
    Now, the back room downstairs was our kitchen, living and dining room, the whole lot. Really we lived in that room. The cooking was done on the kitchener, a sort of range, which heated the room too. When the goose was ready she took it over to the oven but there was no way it could possibly fit in. Mind you, she tried. Put it this way and that, pulled it, pushed it, swore at it but nothing worked. We were getting desperate but it didn’t worry Mum.
    At the back of the kitchen was a little scullery and this had a gas oven. I don’t think it had ever been used before but this was its moment. Mind you, the first thing Mum did was to send me out to clean it. It was thick with rust and dirt and I spent ages scraping and scrubbing. Eventually it was alright, or at least all the loose rust and dirt had been removed though it still looked pretty unsavoury. Even so, the goose still didn’t fit. Then Mum came up with her master-stroke. In the roof of the oven was a small hook. Goodness knows what it was supposed to be used for, but Mum used some string to tie the goose up with its backside in the air and hung it from the hook. No roasting dish or anything like that, just the goose hanging up with its neck on the floor of the oven and its backside pressed against the hook, held in place by string. She lit the gas and we all retreated back to the kitchen.
    About an hour or so later somebody went out into the scullery, I think they were going through into the backyard (the loo was out there) and let out the most enormous scream.
    ‘Quick, quick, the oven’s leaking! There’s water pouring all over the floor!’ We all rushed out and sure enough there was a steady stream of clear liquid dripping out of the oven door and onto the floor. Of course, it was fat. Geese are most dreadfully fatty creatures and Mum had piled goodness knows how much extra fat on top of it. We were all horror-struck, and had visions of no Christmas dinner but Mum was totally unimpressed.
    ‘Go and get some sacks from under the stairs’ she ordered. Part of Dad’s pay in the market was a free load of vegetables every week – it was called his ‘cochel’, goodness knows where the word came from – and he used a sack to bring them home. The sacks had to be returned but he used to collect half a dozen or so and then take them back in one go. Anyway, we grabbed his collection of sacks and laid them all over the scullery floor. Then we retreated again to the kitchen and got on with the rest