Martyn Pig Read Online Free PDF

incapable that all I had to do was step to one side and he’d miss ... most times. I remember once, though, we were sitting at the table eating dinner and Dad had a cigarette smoking in the ashtray. The smoke was getting all over the place, stinking up the food, getting in my eyes, making me cough. I kept on asking him to move it, but he just sat there reading his paper, ignoring me, so finally I reached across to move it myself – and his fist came down like a hammer. Whack. Broke my wrist. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen him move so fast in my life. When he realised what he’d done and that I’d have to go to the hospital, he started getting really worried.
    â€˜Was a acc’dent, Mar’n. Was a acc’dent. Y’gotta tell’em. Was a acc’dent.’
    What it was, he was worried they’d send the social worker round again. You see, earlier in the year, one of the teachers at school had noticed a particularly nasty bruise on my arm. She started asking all these awkward questions – How did it happen? Is everything all right at home? Why are you so tired all the time? – that kind of thing. I tried to put her off but she wouldn’t leave it alone, and in the end this social worker came round poking his nose into everything. Dad was shaking like a leaf. He thought they were going to stop his benefit. But when the social worker talked to me I made out like everything was OK – which it was, in a way – and he seemed happy enough when he left. Of course, Dad put on his
ideal father
act for the next couple of days – smiling at me, talking to me, trying to be nice – but once he realised he was in the clear he was soon back to normal. Thank God. The way I looked at it, things weren’t perfect, but at least I knew where I was with Dad. Better the Devil you know than the Devil you don’t, as they say.
    Maybe everything would have turned out different if I’d told the truth. But I didn’t. When I went to the hospital with my broken wrist I told the doctor it was an accident, I fell off my bike.
    So, anyway, that was Dad in Stage Three – incoherent with an unpredictable hint of violence. Stage Four – the final stage – was when he collapsed into a drunken coma. Anywhere would do. In his chair, on the floor, in the bathroom, on the toilet, lying wherever he fell, snorting out great snotty snores, all kinds of dribbly muck oozing out of his mouth. The scariest thing was when he stopped snoring, just lay there as quiet as a dead man. Unwakeable. I poured a pan of cold water over his head once. He still didn’t wake up. That’s why I took a first aid course at school. So I could tell whether he was dead or just dead drunk.
    That evening, either I’d misread how much he’d had to drink or else he’d jumped straight from Stage One to Stage Three. Or maybe something else happened. I don’t know. I don’t think about it much, to be honest.
    All I was trying to do was watch
Inspector Morse
on the television. Is that too much to ask? I hardly ever watch the television.
Morse
,
A Touch of Frost
,
Wycliffe
, that kind of thing.
The Bill
, sometimes. That’s all I watch, that’s what I like. Detective stuff. Mysteries, murder mysteries. I love them. Especially Morse. I’m not too keen on the books, but the television series is brilliant. Two hours each. Brilliant. What more could a budding murder mystery writer ask for? Two hours of twisting plots, red herrings, strange vicars, spooky murderers and good old Morse always getting it right in the end.
    Now, with Morse, you have to really watch it. From start to finish. It’s no good just having the television on in the background, watching a bit here and a bit there, you have to concentrate all the way through. Otherwise you won’t have a clue what’s going on. And if you don’t know what’s going on, there’s no point in