A frightened boy nurses a huge hand wrapped in bloody swabbing cloths while two butchers crawl about in the sawdust.
'It's no use. It must have gone in the mincer like I said,' said one, straightening up.
'He chopped off his finger and we can't find it,' he explained to the ambulance crew who were supporting the stricken boy to this feet.
'Mincer, mincer,' ran through the crowd like a flame.
Inevitably, the finger ends up in a spaghetti bolognese - knocked up by John Wood for his uncle Cecil, who lives in semi-squalor with a goat and a goldfish. Racked with guilt for his cannibalism, John sees his life start to crumble. Out of work, he moves with his long suffering wife and kids into Cecil's menagerie. Everyone is depressed: poor, lovesick and lonely. And Christmas is coming.
- ISBN10 0099270781
- ISBN13 9780099270782
- Publish Date 2 July 1998 (first published 1 July 1971)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 September 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Minerva
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 160
- Language English