The Butchers' Blessing

by The Butcher's Blessing (retail) (epub)

  Grá felt the ghost of a sales pitch lurking, and yet she was curious. “You’re the owner?”

  “That’s me.” The woman placed the leaves on the counter and started ripping off the brown bits. “I moved home from Dublin last month. I wanted—”

  “I think Mrs. P would like these.” Over on the side, Úna was staring at a swathe of blue nigellas.

  “Miss Jekyll,” both women said at once.

  Grá looked at the stranger.

  “I’m Helen,” she said.

  “I’m Grá. And this is my . . . this is Úna.”

  The bells above the door were tinkling again.

  On the journey back they sat right up the front, which meant the rattle was a little better. It also meant they were a little closer to the driver’s radio. The afternoon chat show was a panel of experts, all of them men, all in possession of Dublin accents. Grá held the flowers across her lap, while Úna dozed against the glass.

  Grá felt exhausted herself—it was the reason she rarely made the journey into town. Long walks through borderland fields were one thing, but this required a different breed of energy. When she was just nodding off, though, she heard the announcement and she was wide awake again. She leaned forward from her seat to catch each ominous letter in turn.

  M-B-M.

  It had just been confirmed—the source of BSE in Ireland had been the meat and bone meal all along. Grá’s rattle came back now worse than ever, the death and birth variety both. Because she was seething—hadn’t they outlawed that stuff years ago? Hadn’t they realised it was unnatural, feeding cattle on bits of other cattle? Turning the poor things into cannibals?

  But the men on the radio tried to explain that “natural” hadn’t really come into it—MBM was just a lot cheaper to produce. So somebody (the authorities were launching an investigation into who) had obviously decided to ignore the law and start making it again on the sly—it was just money, the “modern” priority. Grá looked down to her lap where the flowers lay and her empty purse sat nestled beneath. One of the men made a witty remark and the others laughed. Then they finished up—it was time for a bit of music, some American crowd called the Fugees. She recognised it: “Killing Me Softly.”

  When they got home there was no sign of Cúch and there was no denying Grá’s sense of relief. She knew it was an unnatural thing to feel. Her mouth was dry. She should have ordered a drink in the café—a glass of water wouldn’t have hurt.

  “Thanks for today.”

  She felt the wet kiss on her cheek, but by the time she had turned Úna was already halfway up the stairs.

  “You sure you’re all right, pet?”

  Úna rolled her eyes. “Mam, I’m fine.” Grá supposed it was a good sign. “I’m going to study the instructions.” She held up the bag with the Polaroid.

  Grá watched her go, then looked down. It took a couple of moments to realise the pool of water was from the stems. She knew they were meant to be a gift, but she decided she would put them in a vase for now. It seemed a shame to leave them wrapped in their paper shroud. She ran the tap and fetched the scissors from the drawer, and it was only at the last minute she noticed it. The drop of blood had hardened to black. Her daughter must have cut herself too close.

  I am putting myself forward as a replacement Butcher.

  I have decided I don’t need to be a girl any more.

  Quickly Grá ran the blade under the water, desperate to wash away any trace of that awful evening. She remembered the hairs she had found in the upstairs sink and her hurry to wash them down the drain too. But now she realised she should have kept some of it—should have coiled it up and put it in a locket next to her heart.

  She realised she shouldn’t have married a Butcher.

  She shouldn’t have slept with Ronan.

  She shouldn’t have become such an unnatural mother; such an unnatural wife.

  She placed her hand on her mouth to catch the sob. The gush from the tap almost drowned it out. And the din was so loud she nearly missed the doorbell. She turned off the water and dried her hands on her jeans. She still hadn’t drunk a single thing.

  She wondered if Mrs. P had somehow smelled the flowers and known to drop in. She hadn’t really been around to the house since Sol’s death. Grá hadn’t really invited her. Part of Grá believed it was just easier for them to go visit the widow, but another part knew it was more complex than that; it was more, really, to do with shame.

  Here is my home with my husband and child.

  Here are the things I have that you don’t.

  Here are the things I have that I don’t deserve.

  “Grá?”

  But the woman on the doorstep wasn’t her friend; she was so much more. Or maybe, after all these years, so much less. And there was much less of her now—her body had shrunk, her hair had thinned out—yet it was definitely her, here, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “Lena.”

  Her sister checked over her shoulder to where a small blue car sat crooked-parked in the drive. “Actually, it’s Eileen now.”

  Her guest moved through the hallway slowly, inspecting the rug, the hall table, the wooden banister that led upstairs. Grá wondered whether to call Úna down; whether she had taken her first photograph yet, watching the colours surfacing like a bruise. Back in the kitchen, she used the kettle as an excuse to cross to the other side. The flowers lay splayed across the worktop. But when she turned, Lena—had she really said Eileen?—wasn’t there.

  Grá’s heart leapt.

  “It’s lovely.” Her sister appeared in the doorway.

  “Thank you.” Grá’s heart just about settled. “My husband inherited it.” But then she cut straight to the big question. “How the hell did you manage to find it?” She didn’t have time to wonder why she had said “it” and not “me.”

  “The Butchers.” It was only now that Grá noticed Lena was wearing lipstick. It seemed her instinct for glamour hadn’t shrunk a bit. “I realised if I spoke to them I could ask if they knew what had become of our family. So I planted the seed with my husband and son, and eventually they invited the Butchers round. Then I got the old lad alone—Sol, is that his name?—and I showed him your photograph. I wasn’t surprised when he knew exactly where you were. I assumed there aren’t that many families left.”

  For all the delight of the coincidence, the deep ache at the mention of Sol, there was one detail of the story Grá noticed most. Your photograph. She turned back to the counter and closed her eyes. Her sister had disappeared twenty-five years ago. Her sister had carried her image with her all that time.

  When the kettle was boiled, they descended to the kitchen chairs clutching their cups. The table was still a solid divide between them. Grá remembered Lena once complaining to their parents about the endless stream of tea.

  Can’t we have coffee for once?

  This isn’t the bloody 1900s.

  It was one of the first signs, maybe, of rebellion.

  Grá wanted to voice the memory, but it seemed such a silly place to start. Or maybe in a way, too loaded a place. So instead, they sat in silence and held their cups and started nothing at all.

  “Did you hear about that clock on the River Liffey?” It was Lena who finally took the plunge. It wasn’t a silly place, exactly, just an odd one. “Counting down to the Millennium? I was listening on the way over—apparently it broke again. The algae keeps playing havoc with the tech.”

  “Can they fix it?” Grá tried.

  “I hope so—otherwise we’ll be late.”

  “For a very important date.”

  The look between them was more shock than smile.

  “So do you live near it, then?” Grá moved on.

  “What?”

  “The clock?”

  “God, no. We’re in Monaghan—Fionn’s family farm. Although he has sold off most of the acres by now, so we’re barely a farm at all, we’re—What’s so bloody funny?”

  Grá had
tried to keep her laughter quiet, but the toll of the day had sapped every trace of restraint. “You live on a farm?” she said. “In Monaghan?”

  “Yes.”

  “All this time?”

  “Yes.” This one had a trace of irritation. And then: “Why?”

  But Grá couldn’t answer, because she had doubled over with laughter.

  Here are the things I have that you don’t.

  Here are the things you didn’t have after all.

  “Grá, I wrote,” Lena was sighing now. “And I tried to call, but they must have changed the number. I assumed you were just too raging with me to bother to reply.”

  Grá stopped her laughter. Even if she didn’t any more, she knew she had once deserved so much better. “I didn’t get anything. Do you have any idea . . . ?” But she also stopped her anger. It was far too late in the day to be climbing mountains.

  Despite her frailty, her sister was willing to try. “Grá, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it was selfish to leave, but I—”

  “Are you still with him, then?” Grá cut her off with a more gossipy tone. It was the best that she could manage.

  Lena waited, as if deciding whether to protest the evasion. “Just about.” But then it was her turn to laugh. “Sure, you know what men are like. Drive you up the bloody wall!”

  And Grá could tell her sister was evading too—covering up for so much else. She couldn’t decide if that made her feel better or worse. “You mentioned a son—do you have any other children?”

  “No, just Davey. An absolute pet. Mind you, he gets his Leaving Cert results next week, so all being well he’s about to leave me far behind. And what about you? I didn’t have long with Sol, so he didn’t give me much beyond your address. And of course, who you had ended up marrying.”

  “Were you surprised?” For some reason, Grá suddenly felt that the answer mattered.

  Still Lena’s tea lay untouched. “You know, in a strange way I think I had a suspicion.”

  Grá nodded, unsure if she believed. “Although the Butchers have just announced they’re shutting down.”

  “What?”

  “I know.”

  “After all this time?”

  “I know.”

  “Such a shame.”

  “I know.” Even on the third attempt, it didn’t sound convincing.

  “So what happens next?”

  Grá blinked. It was the biggest question of all.

  The air around them had grown muggy. She wanted to check the nigellas—the blue would be streaking browner by the minute. She would have to try to resurrect them with a drink of water—them and her both.

  She didn’t even begin to try explaining that Sol was dead.

  “I was in town earlier,” she offered instead. “We rarely go in, but I met this woman who had just opened a florist’s. She moved back from Dublin and started it by herself.” Grá stopped. She wasn’t sure where the strange anecdote had come from.

  She wasn’t sure her sister found it strange. “You could do that,” Lena said.

  “What?”

  Lena nodded. “Why not?”

  “Don’t be daft.” And yet, it was the first time all day Grá’s chest hadn’t rattled a bit.

  After a while, she filled the kettle again and rummaged in the depths of the cupboards. When she pulled out the jar, she saw the coffee granules had caked together, but she chipped some free and placed them, watered, before her sister.

  They laughed the same laugh at the same time.

  Slowly, their conversation grew a little easier—not so much a very important date as just a couple of women having a chat. They discussed childhood holidays to Connemara—how a daring Lena had managed to teach a timid Grá how to swim in the sea. They discussed that new play everyone was talking about—The Beauty Queen of Leenane—and the new Domestic Violence Bill that had come in. It meant a wife could finally take out a barring order against a husband for assault. For the first time, Lena became a little hesitant. Grá let the conversation move on. They discussed the revelation about the MBM, wondering who would stoop so low as to still be making and selling such muck, even when they knew the horrendous consequences. They discussed where they would go on their holidays if they ever won the lotto. Grá surprised herself by saying “Japan.” She pictured the cherry blossom in full bloom—it was supposed to take your breath away. She pictured standing in the middle of Tokyo with eight million people racing by.

  But despite their best efforts—despite how their various topics ranged far and wide—still they couldn’t seem to get beyond exactly where they were. Or really, beyond what they were—two women who had long ago made two very different choices; two lives defined by a thing called “love,” or was it just “men,” or just a desire for escape?

  And did they, after everything, feel free?

  “Grá, I’m sick.”

  When Grá looked up at her sister’s sunken face, she saw that the remark made perfect sense. “Oh?”

  “Brain tumour,” she said. “They got it out, but apparently it’ll come back soon enough. In the meantime I take these wretched drugs that are supposed to stop me having fits, but they leave me . . . I get terrible . . .”

  As she listened, Grá knew she was supposed to be feeling shock or devastation. Or maybe confusion—a brain tumour at forty-six?—surely that couldn’t be right. But instead she felt a strange relief that that was the reason their reunion had been so awkward; the reason it wasn’t living up to all those years of fantasy. Her sister was sick. The wretched drugs left her . . . She got terrible . . .

  Grá felt an urge to ask what words came next.

  “And my husband keeps mentioning some fancy clinic down in Dublin, but the doctors haven’t heard of it, so I suspect it’s a bit of wishful thinking on his behalf. Anyway, I thought I better let you know—5 per cent of brain tumours are hereditary, apparently—so just in case the bloody thing runs in our family.”

  Grá tried to absorb the information, the grim statistic, the weight of the words “our family,” but then she heard the sound of the front door opening and the almost-birthday girl rushing down the stairs. “Dad, Dad, look what I got in town!”

  Grá and Lena stood up. Úna panted as she pulled Cúch into the kitchen by his hand, his bruise still a gaudy sunflower yellow. Everyone froze. Grá glanced from one face to the next and thought of the saying about your whole life flashing before your eyes. This scene was very still.

  A photograph.

  A Polaroid.

  A family portrait.

  “Who are you?”

  “Úna, this is my sister. Her name is Lena. We haven’t . . . We fell out of touch a long time ago, but this afternoon she rang the doorbell and, well, here we are.”

  Grá watched as her daughter took in the information, piece by shaky piece. She watched as her sister took in her daughter, hair by uneven hair.

  She couldn’t bring herself to watch her husband.

  And even despite their closeness, despite the jokes and the secret rituals that were theirs and theirs alone, at first Grá couldn’t understand her daughter’s response. “You told me it made us more special?”

  “What’s that, love?”

  “Being only children. Having no siblings. Why did you lie?”

  She had no idea where to begin. But fortunately she had forgotten that that was what older sisters were for.

  “I’m afraid that’s my fault, pet.” Slowly Lena’s frail body folded itself downwards until she was the same height as her niece. “When I was a bit younger I took a notion to annoy our parents by running away with a non-believer. And it worked! But do you want to know the truth?” Here Lena grimaced, though it was impossible to know if the pain was to do with her illness or her confession. “I realise now that I should have run back.”

  “How long is the drive?”

  Lena fumbled her keys around the lock, drawing little scratches into the blue paint. “Only an hour, but I need to be home before the boys.
They’ll go mad if they catch me—I’m not supposed to drive.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was going to write, but I had to see you. Then I looked into getting the bus. Until eventually I thought, What the hell. And sure, didn’t I make it in one piece?”

  “Lena, I can give you a lift.”

  “If you think I’m going to start letting my little sister boss me around after all these years, you can think again!”

  Around them the afternoon had gone golden, sepia hues like a vintage film reel. Smiling, Grá let the matter drop and realised she had far more important things to clear up, because—talk about mad!—they had forgotten to swap details all over again. “Wait, you never told me—” But when she saw Lena rubbing her temples, ready to depart, Grá realised something else. This would be the last time. So she changed her question. “Your holiday destination?” she improvised. “If you won the lotto?”

  Lena blinked. Green eyes and childhood holidays—those were the things they would always share. The rest might have disappeared, might have been rescued from drowning too late, but they would always, at least, have those.

  “Hollywood Boulevard.” Lena didn’t even need a moment to deliberate. “The Chinese Theatre with the handprints out the front—I’d use my winnings to buy a slab of my own. At least then I would know I had left some kind of mark on the world.”

  Grá stood outside the house long after the sound of the engine had evaporated. She wrapped her arms around her body even though it wasn’t cold. In the distance, she saw the starlings approach, then begin their show, throwing black shapes against the sky. A murmuration, swooping and redoubling, perfectly synchronised.

  Beyond them she saw the coast of Connemara where a rental cottage crumbled to the sea; saw two girls scratching each other’s names with sticks into the wet grey sand. She saw a bottle and a piece of paper, which, without a clue of what to write, she had just left blank and thrown into the sea.

  “Grá.” He stopped a few inches behind her, always that little bit out of reach.

  She spoke quickly. “I should have told you.” She wanted to get in there first. “I should have admitted I had a sister, but—”