Nick Griffins and Mary Dobson had been married for nine years. It wasn’t their first marriage – life had been hard on them kicking them around. They had no children from their marriage, first because they were in their late fifties and second because they already had had plenty of them. Nick had three and Mary had four or perhaps it was the other way round. Nick had never been sober enough to count all his offspring and Mary, being a clever woman, preferred to keep silent about the real number of her kids.
They got on well as one is supposed to in a respectable family to say nothing of minor fights which mean nothing to kind people. Mary had such big fists as strong as iron and as heavy as your district dustbin that in every argument she had the upper hand. Besides, she worked at a local bar, so it’s no wonder that everybody called her Bloody Mary even to her face, the consequences of which ranged from friendly patting on the back to a rehabilitation ward at a local hospital. In spite of that everybody thought her a cutie.
As to her second half, it wasn’t that he was very old or that he was a rare guest at the church that people called him Old Nick. Maybe one of his ex-wives or drinking buddies could account for this unpleasant nickname, no one knows, but the name had stuck to him and couldn’t be washed off by his good behaviour even if he knew what it meant.