The Butcher's Hook

by Janet Ellis

  Bet looks squarely at me. As if we are equals, she reads my expression carefully. I see the merest nod of her head, the trace of a smile. Her deep eyes glisten. ‘You are come again, Jane. We have not seen you here for a while.’

  ‘There is a new baby in the house.’ And Jane is off down the open road of little dimples and nightly colic, treading a familiar path.

  I breathe more easily but I feel a sliver of resentment that my fate hangs, once again, in the hands of someone I would not otherwise cross the street to see. Bet listens to Jane’s paean of praise to my mother – ‘So brave!’ – and the baby – ‘So beautiful!’ Her head tilts to one side and she punctuates with appropriate responses. But I can tell she is really thinking of me.

  ‘Well,’ says Jane, having eventually exhausted every detail of maternity, ‘let us go in.’

  ‘This is not the place for a young lady.’ Levener swells up as if he’d been deflated till this point. Like Bet, he looks pointedly at me but, unlike her, his expression is only snide. ‘If we had known that you were coming, we’d have swept and tidied.’ He turns to Jane. ‘We don’t keep a shabby place, of course. But it’s a messy business, butchery, and guts and gore are involved. As you might struggle to imagine, Mistress Jaccob.’ He smirks at me, revelling in my enforced silence.

  ‘Fub!’ he bellows, as if Fub stood in the next town and not beside him. ‘There are new puppies born next door.’ He bares his brown teeth at me. ‘Fub’ll show ’em to you.’ He squeezes his fat hands together. Fub puts down his hammer on the mended stool. He ignores the other three and beckons to me. As if he is the man and they the small children, they stand aside and let us pass.

  ‘Girls will always follow boys to see puppies, aye,’ Bet sings.

  ‘This way.’ Fub goes ahead of me. I suspect he is a little chastened by the errand. We go through the yard into a small lean-to beside it. I blink in the gloom. Fub takes my hand as if he always does, to lead me without stumbling. He pulls aside a shabby cloth over the window and reveals a mass of brown fur wedged into the corner. The mother and her puppies lie so close together that she seems a beast with many little legs, tails and heads.

  ‘Hallo, girl,’ he says. I envy the bitch his fond greeting. He has let go of my hand. I have a swift memory of the last time we met, a jumble of rats and bleeding and the scent of his breath. When I had lain down and thought of him last night, I had pictured our next meeting in a sweeter place.

  ‘A midden, eh?’ Fub sees my nose wrinkle, though I do not mind the smell. There is no sourness to it.

  ‘Shall you hold one?’ Fub indicates the animals at his feet.

  I would rather hold you, I think. Or have you reach for me.

  ‘Why is it always assumed that young things are catnip to girls?’ I say.

  ‘I do not think you are like all girls,’ Fub says, looking at me as if he would like to investigate if I am, at least, the same shape as the others. He squats on his heels and frees one small fellow from his brothers. At this, they all stir and stretch as if connected. The mother lies immobile, her teats as fat as fungus. He takes another, one in each hand. They wave their legs as if trying to find another warm and sleepy body for comfort, even in mid-air.

  ‘Why has she come to see us?’ Fub adopts the voice of a sulky child, holding one puppy higher. ‘When she has no fondness for we creatures?’ The dogs in his hands sleep soundly now; the little crescents of their closed eyes do not respond. ‘She wants to follow Fub,’ he makes the other say in a squeak. ‘She wants to be where he is and if we are there too, it is of no importance to her.’ He turns the first one to face his brother. ‘She is a pretty visitor, anyway. I shall look at her while she looks at him.’ I laugh, the idea of these runts discussing me is deliciously foolish. ‘She is indeed. Happy the dog who makes puppies with her!’ he squeals.

  ‘Fub is very brave when he has mouthpieces to speak for him.’ I tell the puppies. ‘One child would be bad enough, I should not want a litter!’

  He shakes one dog gently. Its ears flap and it shivers as though in a draught. ‘The practice without the consequence then,’ he says for it.

  ‘Give me one of them,’ I say. ‘I do not want to hear what else these naughty pups might say next.’ I only want to know what he will say when we are alone, away from dogs and dank corners and far from the people that may be listening outside.

  I kneel and take one of the puppies from him. It lies awkwardly on my lap, for it does not shape to me as a baby would. The pink stomach protrudes from dark hair, plump and round. The small mouth gapes and I put my finger there. At once its teeth clamp. They are sharp as needles. I cry out in pain, but I cannot shake myself free. Fub puts his little finger in where the jaw hinges, and prises it open. ‘Learning to bite. You are practice for the rats he’ll chase and kill. Or he mistook you for food.’ He puts the pup down, then shifts more recumbent bodies away from the dozing bitch and strokes her head. She does not move. Motherhood seems to be equally exhausting for all living things. He squeezes one teat till a bead of milk appears. ‘Offer him that,’ he says. When I put my milky finger to the puppy, its tongue explores and then licks.

  We do not need pretty rainbows, Fub and I. We will not brush hands at a dance or exchange covert glances in the back of a carriage. That is a sugary romance, collapsing in brittle shards when you bite. Ours is as chewy as glue. We have better settings than blossom paths. The air stinks of sodden straw. The puppy sighs and sleeps and sucks. Fub’s patchwork eyes gleam. I would strike dark bargains to make this moment last.

  ‘Mistress Anne!’ Jane’s shriek is like freezing air on my hot cheeks. I get to my feet, gripping the puppy too hard to avoid dropping it. It yelps in protest. She is at the doorway. ‘Ugh!’ she says. ‘That dog needs to clear up after her pups!’ She looks at my face then down at my skirt, pulling it towards her, brushing and tutting. ‘Have you been kneeling on all this dirt? Fub, why did you let her clothes soil?’

  We are the infants again as Jane scolds. Fub puts the pup back with the litter. They move to make room for it as if they were liquid.

  ‘How many?’ Jane says, peering at the pile.

  ‘Seven,’ Fub brushes his hands on his shirt. ‘We’ll keep one. They’ll probably put the rest in a barrel if no one wants them.’ When I look down at the dogs I cannot tell which one I held.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Jane says, without any particular sadness. ‘Come, Madam. We had best walk the longer route to let that odour leave your dress. Or I shall be in trouble.’ She sounds quite gay at the prospect. ‘Fub, you are a bad boy.’ He holds his hands to his head in a parody of a chastened child. These two are enjoying themselves.

  ‘I chose to kneel where I did and hold the dog,’ I say sharply. ‘Fub is not to blame.’

  ‘Fub will know what he is guilty of,’ Jane says, as if I were merely petulant. ‘Come along.’

  I turn round once in the street, as we leave. But Fub is not there. Instead, a man I do not wish to acknowledge steps quicker when he spots me and waves. ‘Mistress Anne!’ he calls.

  ‘Who is that?’ Jane glares at him, batting him away as he approaches.

  I am resigned to an explanation of sorts. ‘A Scotsman,’ I say. I wait till Angus draws level, so that he can hear my denial. ‘I do not know him well, we had a passing acquaintance.’ I meet his eyes and know he will not give me away.

  ‘Only passing,’ he agrees. ‘It was at church, was it not?’ He bows to Jane. I see her little features twist to work this new puzzle out.

  ‘I am pleased to see you, Mistress Anne,’ he says. ‘Are you well?’

  ‘I am,’ I reply. ‘I am at my lessons. Jane is teaching me how to keep house.’

  ‘Did you receive instruction here?’ he jerks his head towards the Levener’s sign.

  ‘The butcher’s boy, Fub, knows that business well,’ I say. ‘And more besides. I am talking about the puppies
, of course,’ I tell Jane.

  ‘Where is your tutor, the butcher’s boy, now?’ As he says this, I feel Jane twitch. She is torn between hearing more of this odd exchange and hastening me home.

  ‘We leave him behind. And we must say farewell to you.’ I turn to leave but he comes very close to me, on the side away from Jane. ‘Does he teach you to do without him?’ He whispers this, so she cannot hear.

  ‘That is a necessary instruction, is it not?’ I whisper back.

  ‘He had better not be too good a teacher in that regard.’ The man is hard to hear, he is speaking so quietly. ‘You are a keen student, Anne. You are very quick to learn, too.’

  ‘Be off with you.’ Jane swings her basket in front of me like a scythe.

  He doesn’t look at her, but bows again. ‘I do not wish to offend, Madam.’ He stands still, watching us go as if we are casting off and leaving him ashore.

  Chapter 13

  ‘The puppies put colour in your cheeks.’ Jane scarcely looks where she is going as she strides, she is so eager to watch me while I answer her.

  ‘You know it was not that. Do not pretend.’

  ‘You are more your mother’s child than you realise.’ She relishes our intimacy. It will last only till our front door. ‘I have seen her eyes sparkling like yours.’

  ‘That sort of talk is silly.’ I am not going to humour her with fripperies and giggling. ‘My mother would not like to be discussed in this way, either.’

  Jane’s mouth curls downwards at the corners at this admonition. Her new role as keeper of my secrets fits awkwardly; it is not a garment made for her. It slips around her as if it’s too large and unwieldy. But she cannot unfasten it now, even if it hinders her. She walks in silence, sulking. ‘Do not imagine you are all grown up because you give a boy a stalk.’

  I look at her in astonishment. Then I laugh. ‘Well, Jane,’ I say. ‘You are very coarse with me all of a sudden. Are you sure I know enough of these things to speak as you do?’

  ‘Quite sure.’ She gives a little shake of her head. It is as if we have two steps before us and take turns to stand one higher than the other. She certainly thinks she looks down at me now.

  ‘And were you this vulgar with my mother?’ Jane was my mother’s nurse, although neither of them indulge in fond reminiscing.

  ‘When I had to be.’ Jane wobbles on her perch.

  ‘When her eyes were sparkling?’ I say, pushing her off.

  Jane draws her breath in noisily through her nose, then expels it in one long sigh. ‘Oh,’ she groans as her shoulders sink. ‘Mistress Anne, what is started now cannot end well.’ She purses her lips as though the words she speaks makes them sore. ‘I should not have talked of your mother, her happiness was so brief.’ I can hear tears in her voice. ‘Every girl hopes to find love and situation neatly bundled. It is hardly ever so.’

  Love. The word makes me queasy. Love claws at me. It spreads like hot oil.

  Jane sighs again; she will run out of air soon. ‘You cannot see him, Anne,’ she says, solemn and low. ‘You must deny yourself.’

  ‘I cannot choose one way or the other.’ I clasp my hands to emphasise the point. ‘Love grows where it will and as it wants.’

  ‘If you feed it, it does. It’ll latch on like a parasite and be all the more difficult to remove.’ Jane sounds so sour that I have to look at her to make sure she is not replaced by an impostor. ‘I’ve said enough,’ she says. ‘You know the truth of what I say.’

  ‘Did my mother understand this, too?’

  Jane does not reply, but I see her brush underneath her eyes with the sides of her little fingers to catch the water there.

  * * *

  Aunt Elizabeth comes by nightfall. Her fussing begins at the doorstep and her questioning shortly after. She is my father’s sister, but as unlike him in bearing and appearance as a bird to a bull. Even her voice is a trill, and she twitters and cheeps her instructions and queries. If we left the windows wide, I wonder if she might fly out. She is, at least, a diversion from all the talk of marriage.

  At dinner my mother does not come and my father sits his sister in his wife’s place. She responds by asking Jane about every morsel she brings in and by the end of the meal she is even lifting the lids of the dishes to examine their contents. She also affects to find my father the very soul of wit and treats his every utterance as though it was mined from the seam of comedy itself.

  ‘Too much salt!’ she repeats, chuckling and gazing at him fondly. ‘What happened to the potatoes?’ she crows, just after he’s said it.

  ‘This is all pips.’ My father spits on to his plate.

  ‘All pips!’ She giggles in delight as we tackle the fruit.

  He doesn’t react to this constant quoting and admiration, although he invites her to take brandy with him in his study after, so it cannot annoy him too much. I hear his gruff remarks followed by her peals of laughter for a long time into the evening before there is silence.

  * * *

  I don’t want to watch all the packing and packaging – it is enough that they will soon be gone – and, when my mother shouts to me to say farewell, I only lean down from the top floor and call back to her. The door closes, the house settles with a heavy sigh and I begin to wonder how to order my day.

  I am not alone for long. Aunt Elizabeth takes the stairs at quite a pace to reach me. ‘Don’t be sorry, Anne, they’ll all be home soon enough.’ She takes my face in her two hands. ‘Such a sweet daughter. And sister. And niece.’ She kisses my forehead. ‘Now, come sit with me and tell me about your suitor. I am agog to meet him.’

  We face each other across the parlour. My aunt takes up some needlework from a small basket by her chair. ‘Do you work on something?’ she asks. I shake my head. She inspects her work of the previous day, picks the needle free then pulls the thread taut and begins to sew. The needle squeaks through the cloth.

  ‘Thomas tells me Mr Onions has several improving outings planned for you.’ She keeps the sewing close to her face and squints, her tongue beginning to protrude as she concentrates. When I do not reply, she looks up. She puts her head on one side. ‘It is a demanding time in a young girl’s life. Heaven knows I do not speak from experience, but I have been a keen observer.’ And a gossip and pontificator, I think. ‘And getting to know a gentleman is a new challenge for even the most well-rounded person.’ She resumes her sewing. ‘How do you find him thus far?’

  I did not know I had a plan until I say ‘I am frightened of Onions’ so easily it might have been stored up for months.

  She is puzzled. ‘Frightened, why?’

  ‘He . . . oh, he . . .’ I look to the floor as if I am too pained to continue. I count to five in my head before I look up. ‘He made attempts on my . . . modesty.’

  Is that enough? She holds her hand to her mouth, looking anguished. Her sewing falls to the floor. It would seem to be enough, then.

  ‘I told him I was an innocent.’ She nods and bids me go on, a little excited by my confession. ‘He would not hear it. He pressed himself on me. I cannot tell my father, but I must not see . . . that man again.’

  She touches her hand to my knee. ‘Did he . . . ?’ She wants to know more. Every detail. I’ll tell her more than she needs. I am like a maypole, watching as my ribbons weave prettily together without tangling while my lies dance.

  I spin her an intricate tale of unwanted touches and crude words and underhand threats and illicit caresses. It is all so vivid I almost believe it myself.

  ‘Please,’ I entreat in scarcely a whisper, ‘let me go daily to church in the times where I might have received him here, for although I don’t believe I did anything to encourage him, I am sullied by what has happened and want to ask forgiveness.’

  I worry I might have gone too far with this, but Elizabeth’s eyes shine with tears of sympathy and she says, ‘Of co
urse, you must go. You have done nothing wrong, poor child, but the Lord will surely heal your heart.’

  Before she can suggest we go to the church together and kneel side by side, I embrace her, catching her stiff bonnet with my cheek, and mutter about going alone – the better to understand and then forgive.

  ‘And, dear Elizabeth, please oversee the kitchen. My mother’s confinement has meant we have lacked leadership at the helm.’

  That should keep her busy. She nods vigorously, full of energy at the prospect of stepping into my mother’s shoes and doubtless even ready to find fault with their laces and buckles.

  She begins her work at breakfast, subjecting Jane to such a barrage of enquiries I suspect the poor woman can hardly remember her own name by the end of it. These two will occupy each other like fighting cocks put in the same cage. I will be left to my own devices. I intend to go on sharpening their spurs and shaking the cage for some time.

  * * *

  After enduring a great many of my aunt’s sympathetic sighs and lingering glances, I take my leave.

  ‘I am going to the church.’ I make my voice tremble a little.

  ‘Of course.’ One last sorrowing shake of her head.

  ‘Thank you for your comfort,’ I whisper, suggesting that I am at once fearful yet brave. In case she should be watching me go, I walk with my eyes downcast and shoulders drooped.

  Once out of sight, I could almost fling my bonnet to the sky. A whole day with only myself to consider! It is like finding a jewel in the dirt. I think I cannot go again to the butcher’s shop – even the dullard Leveners might be suspicious of my motives if I did – but I have taken the precaution of carrying some small coins for my purposes. If I go towards the Inns of Court, there should be company enough that I am safe, and plenty of those with little to do that I can employ.

  I have not been there long when I see a girl of about twelve. She is shooshing and clapping to the birds that flock there, watching them fly up and land again at a short distance from her. She stops when she sees me.