Moral Disorder

by Margaret Atwood

  Nell sensed that she was growing a hard shell, all around herself. It kept her from feeling as sorry for Tig as she ought to. Tig’s view was that he couldn’t get into any sort of open conflict with Oona. He could not, for instance, initiate a divorce. Oona must be allowed to believe that she was the one in control. If Tig did anything sudden – if he made the first move – Oona would use it against him with the children. After all, they lived with her, officially; not with him.

  “They spend more time with us,” Nell said. “If you count waking hours. And she’ll use it against you anyway. She already is.”

  “She isn’t well,” Tig said. “There’s something wrong with her health.” He said that nothing must be done to disturb Oona unduly.

  I disturb her unduly anyway, thought Nell. I can’t help it.

  There was more to this conversation, but it wasn’t voiced.

  I’m almost thirty-four, thought Nell. When will things be untangled?

  But Tig was in no hurry.

  The wild plums in the hedgerows ripened and fell. They were blue, ovoid, fragrant. Nell gathered them up by the basketful and carried them home in a swirl of tiny fruit flies, and made them into compotes and rich purple jam. Tig licked her purple fingers, kissed her purple lips; they made love slowly in the warm, hazy evenings. Replete, thought Nell. That’s the word. Why would I want anything to change, ever?

  In September, Nell picked the less wormy and scabby apples from the apple trees and made them into apple jelly. The ground under the trees was littered with fallen and fermenting apples: butterflies lit on them and drank, then staggered around unevenly; wasps did the same. One morning Tig and Nell woke up to find a herd of drunken pigs lying under the trees, grunting and snoring in contentment. Evidently they’d been on a binge.

  Tig chased them off, then followed them to see where they’d come from. They were from the pig farm up the hill, in back: they did this every year, said the pig farmer. They’d break out of their pen, just as if they’d been planning it for months, and dig their way under the fence. They always picked the right time. It cheered them up to have this one orgy to look forward to, was his view. Never mind that the apple trees weren’t his.

  Nell knew they couldn’t say anything. A boundary was a boundary only if you could defend it. People’s houses got broken into around here. Theft took place, vandalism. She didn’t always feel safe when Tig wasn’t there.

  Susan the cow went away in a truck one day and came back frozen and dismembered. It was like a magic trick – a woman sawed in half on the stage in plain view of all, to reappear fully restored to wholeness, walking down the aisle; except that Susan’s transformation had gone the other way. Nell didn’t want to think about what had happened to Susan during her period of invisibility.

  “Is this Susan we’re eating?” said the boys, shovelling down the pot roast.

  “You shouldn’t have named the cows,” said Nell. The boys grinned. They’d discovered the value of shock and horror, at least at the dinner table.

  Nell was overrun with vegetables. She didn’t know what to do with them. Some could be canned, others dried and frozen, yet others – such as the mound of surplus zucchinis – fed to the chickens. Nell put up a dozen jars of cucumber pickles, a dozen jars of pickled beets. She stored the potatoes and carrots and onions in the root cellar, where they joined the bottles of homemade beer Tig had brewed and the crock of fermenting sauerkraut from Nell’s excess cabbages. Putting the sauerkraut in the cellar was a mistake – it filled the whole house with a strong odour of dirty feet – but Nell comforted herself with the thought that it was high in vitamin C and would be useful if they were snowed in all winter and began to get scurvy.

  In the second week of October, Tig and Nell beheaded their first hen. Tig did it with the axe, looking a little pale. The hen ran around in the yard, spouting blood from its neck like a fountain. The cows became agitated, and mooed. The remaining hens cackled. The peacocks screamed.

  Nell had to consult Mrs. Roblin as to what to do next. She scalded the hen and plucked it, as per instructions. Then she took out the insides. She had never smelled anything so nauseating. There were a number of eggs, of various sizes, in various stages of development.

  That’s it, she thought. I’m not doing this again. Those chickens will die of old age as far as I’m concerned.

  Tig made the chicken into a stew, with carrots and onions from the garden. The boys ate it with relish. They wished they’d been there to see the hen running around without a head. Tig had recovered from his pale moment and was revelling in the joys of description.

  In late October, three ewes were added to the cows in the farmyard. Tig’s idea was that they would produce lambs, which could then be sold or eaten. The ewes waded into the pond for some unknown reason and got their legs tangled in a roll of barbed wire that was lurking under the surface, and Tig had to cut them free with wire cutters and carry them out. Their fleece was sopping wet and they were very heavy. They struggled and kicked, and Tig slipped and went sideways into the pond, and after that he got a cold. Nell rubbed Vicks VapoRub on him, and made him hot lemon with whisky in it.

  In November, Tig’s bottles of homemade beer began to explode, down in the cellar. There would be a bang, then beer and broken glass all over the floor, like a Saturday-night car crash. Nell never knew when one of the bottles was about to go off: venturing into the cellar to get a carrot or a potato was like running a minefield. But the beer in the bottles still intact was excellent, said Tig, though very effervescent. He had to drink those bottles in quick succession so they wouldn’t be wasted.

  Winter came. The driveway drifted over; the car had to be left at the bottom of the hill, where the big snowplow coming by regularly buried it. Then there was a sleet storm, and the telephone wires came down, and the electricity went off. Luckily the wood stove had been set up by then. Nell and Tig huddled beside it, wrapped in quilts, burning a flock of candles to keep the darkness at bay.

  On other days – days without blizzards, or high winds, or freezing rain – the fields were dazzlingly white and pure, the air crisp. Tig loved feeding the animals on such days; he found it peaceful. They’d gather around him in the morning while he opened a fresh bale of hay, their fragrant breath steaming in the cold, jostling one another only slightly, looking in the wintry scene like the corner of a Nativity tableau. Nell gazed out the window at the tranquil grouping, feeling she was back in a simpler time. But then the phone would ring. She’d hesitate before answering: it might be Oona.

  In February, with the snow whipping across the icy fields, the ewes lambed. One of them had triplets, and rejected the smallest of her three lambs: Tig found it shivering and trembling in a corner of the stall. Tig and Nell took the disowned lamb inside the house and wrapped it in a towel and put it into the wicker laundry basket, and wondered what to do next. Unfortunately, one of the lambs left with the ewe stuck its head between two boards in the stall and froze to death, so in theory the third, runty lamb could have replaced it; but the mother would have nothing to do with the desolate little creature.

  “It must smell wrong to her,” said Nell. “It’s been with us.”

  Mrs. Roblin told them to put the wrapped-up lamb inside the oven with the door open and the heat on low and feed it brandy with an eye dropper, so that is what they did. She came over in person to make sure they were doing it right. She treated Nell and Tig as if they were slightly dim-witted children – a few bricks short of a load, as the local farmers were in the habit of saying. The lamb was bleating feebly and kicking a little; Mrs. Roblin looked into its eyes and then its mouth and said it would most likely make it through. Nell wanted to know how she could tell, but felt it would be stupid to ask.

  Day by day the lamb grew stronger. Nell cradled it in her arms while feeding it; she was embarrassed to find herself rocking it and singing to it.

  “What’s its name?” said the boys.

  “It doesn’t have a name,” said Nell. She was
n’t going to fall into the trap of naming it.

  Soon the lamb was standing up, drinking milk from a baby bottle. Tig made it a stall in the summer kitchen, where it was given fresh straw bedding every day; but as it became friskier and wanted to run and leap, they decided it was a shame to keep it cooped up, so they let it into the house. On the slippery linoleum – the new, slippery linoleum they’d laid down, with a pattern in the shape of tiles – its four legs splayed out and it had trouble keeping its balance. But soon it had mastered the art, and was bouncing here and there, twirling its long woolly tail.

  It couldn’t be toilet-trained, however. It peed whenever it felt the urge, and left piles of shiny brown raisin-sized pellets on the linoleum. Nell made it a diaper out of a green plastic garbage bag, cutting holes for the back legs and the tail, but that was worse than useless.

  At the end of March, the peahen was found dead on the floor of the barn, underneath its crossbeam perch. A weasel must have gone up there during the night, said Mrs. Roblin: weasels would do that. The peacock was hanging around the crumpled body, looking confused. What will become of him now? thought Nell. He’s all alone.

  By April, the lamb was too big to be kept in the house. He was becoming too strong, too boisterous. They put him into the barnyard with the cows and sheep, but he didn’t make friends with the other lambs. He kept to himself, except when Tig went into the yard to feed the animals. Then, when Tig’s back was turned, the lamb would take a run at him and slam into him from behind.

  It was a different story with Nell. When she appeared, the lamb would come over to her and nuzzle against her; then he’d stand between her and Tig.

  Tig had to take a length of two-by-four into the barnyard to defend himself. When the lamb came running at him he’d whang it on the forehead. The lamb would shake its head and back off, but soon enough he would try again.

  “He thinks it’s a contest,” said Nell.

  “He’s in love with you,” said Tig.

  “I’m glad somebody is,” said Nell.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Tig, aggrieved.

  Nell didn’t know what it was supposed to mean. She hadn’t intended to say it. It had just come out of her mouth. She felt her lip trembling. This is ridiculous, she thought.

  After the murder of his wife, the peacock started behaving strangely. He displayed to the hens in their yard, fanning out his tail, rattling the feathers. When the hens showed no interest in him, he leapt on them and pecked them. He had a powerful neck, and packed a hard wallop. He killed several hens.

  Tig shut the hens up in their house and tried to catch the peacock, but he flew away out of reach and screamed. Then he went after the ducks, but they had the sense to skitter down into the pond where he couldn’t get at them. Then he caught sight of his own reflection in one of the house windows – a window with a mound of earth near it, on which he could stand. He displayed to himself, fanning and rattling his tail feathers and screaming in threat, and then attacked the window.

  “He’s gone mad,” said Tig.

  “He’s in a state of grief,” said Nell.

  “It must be mating season,” said Tig.

  The peacock took to lurking around outside the house, peering in through the ground-floor windows like a crazed voyeur. He knew his enemy was in there. Hate had replaced love in his tiny, demented head. He was bent on assassination.

  “We should find him another mate,” said Nell. But they didn’t get around to it, and then one day he was gone.

  The lamb was growing bigger and bigger and more and more fearless. He no longer waited until Tig’s back was turned, he’d now charge at him from any angle. His skull seemed made of cement; hitting him with a two-by-four merely encouraged him.

  “We can’t let him go on like this,” said Tig. “He’s going to injure someone.”

  “He thinks he’s a human being,” said Nell. “He thinks he’s a man. He’s just guarding his territory.”

  “All the more reason,” said Tig. There was a farmer nearby – said the guys at the store – who’d been drinking one night and had tried to cross a field where a billygoat was pastured. The goat ran at him and knocked him down. Every time the poor sod tried to get up, the goat knocked him down again. By sunrise the poor bastard was almost dead. The lamb would soon be a full-grown ram; then he might pull something like that.

  “So what are we going to do?” said Nell. They both knew what. But Tig wasn’t up to chopping the head off the lamb, and then dismembering it, or whatever had to be done; he wasn’t up to butchery. Hens were as far as he would go.

  “We’ll have to take him to Anderson’s,” he said.

  They managed to catch the lamb. Nell had to lure him over to where Tig waited stock-still with a rope, because the lamb trusted her and didn’t see her as a rival. Once they’d wrestled him down to the ground, they tied his legs together and carted him out of the barnyard. The other sheep and the cows looked over the fence, mooing and baaing. They all knew something was up.

  Tig and Nell lifted the lamb into the trunk of the Chevy. He kicked and struggled, and bleated piteously. Then they got into the car themselves and drove away. Nell felt as if they were kidnapping the lamb – tearing him away from home and family, holding him for ransom, except that there wouldn’t be any ransom. He was doomed, for no crime except the crime of being himself. His muffled bleats did not stop, all the way to Anderson’s Custom Slaughtering.

  “What next?” said Nell. She felt exhausted. Treachery is hard work, she thought.

  “We get him out of the car,” said Tig. “We take him into the building.”

  “Do we have to wait?” said Nell. While it’s happening, she meant. While it’s being done. The way you’d wait at a child’s first visit to the dentist.

  Wait where? There was no place to wait.

  Anderson’s was a long, low building that had once been white. The double doors were open; from inside came a dim light. Stacks of barrels stood around outside in the yard, and crates, and a closed van – a horse van – and some rusted machinery parts. A sort of pulley. The barrels and crates also looked rusted, but they couldn’t be rusted because they were made of wood.

  There was nobody around. Maybe they should honk the horn to announce their presence, Nell thought. That way they wouldn’t have to go in.

  Tig was at the back of the car, trying to get the trunk open.

  “It’s jammed or something,” he said. “Or maybe it’s locked.” From inside the trunk the lamb bleated.

  “I’ll go in,” said Nell. “There must be someone. The doors are open. They’ll have a crowbar.” Or something, she thought. They’ll have all kinds of things. Bludgeons. Sharp-edged tools. Knives for the throat-slitting.

  She went into the building. A row of naked light bulbs hung from the ceiling. Beside the door were two more barrels, the tops off. She looked in: they were filled with skinned cows’ heads, in brine. She assumed it was brine. There was a sweet, heavy, clotted smell, a menstrual smell. The cement floor was strewn with sawdust. At least the weather is cool, she thought. At least there aren’t a lot of flies.

  Farther on was a sort of corral, and some high-sided pens or cubicles.

  “Hello?” she called. “Anybody here?” As if she’d come to borrow a cup of sugar.

  From around the corner of one of the pens came a tall, heavy man. On top he was wearing nothing but an undershirt; his thick arms were bare. As in some old comic book about torturers in the Middle Ages, he was bald. He had an apron on, or maybe it was just a piece of grey canvas tied around his middle. There were brown smears on it that must have been blood. In one hand he was holding an implement of some kind. Nell did not look closely at it.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “Our lamb is stuck in the trunk,” she said. “Of our car. It’s jammed shut. We thought maybe you had a crowbar or something.” Her voice sounded tinny and frivolous.

  “Won’t be hard,” the man said. He strode forward.


  On the way back to the farm, Nell began to cry. She couldn’t stop. She cried and cried, without restraint, in gasps and sobs.

  Tig pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car, and took her in his arms. “I feel sad too,” he said. “The poor little fellow. But what else could we do?”

  “It isn’t just the lamb,” said Nell, hiccupping, wiping her nose.

  “What is it then? What?”

  “It’s everything,” said Nell. “You didn’t see what was in there. Everything’s gone wrong!”

  “No, it hasn’t,” said Tig, hugging her tightly. “It’s all right. I love you. It’ll be fine.”

  “It won’t, it won’t,” said Nell. She began to cry again.

  “Tell me what it is.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Just tell me.”

  “You don’t want me to have any babies,” said Nell.

  The lamb came back in a white oblong cardboard box, like a dress box. Neatly arranged in waxed paper were the tender pink chops, the two legs, the shanks and neck for stewing. There were two little kidneys, and a delicate heart.

  Tig cooked the lamb chops with dried rosemary from Nell’s garden. Despite her sorrow – for she still felt sorrow – Nell had to admit they were delicious.

  I am a cannibal, she thought with odd detachment.

  Maybe she would grow cunning, up here on the farm. Maybe she would absorb some of the darkness, which might not be darkness at all but only knowledge. She would turn into a woman others came to for advice. She would be called in emergencies. She would roll up her sleeves and dispense with sentimentality, and do whatever blood-soaked, bad-smelling thing had to be done. She would become adept with axes.

  White Horse

  In their second year at the farm, Nell and Tig acquired a white horse. They didn’t buy this horse, or even seek her out. But suddenly, there she was.