The Butchers

by Ruth Gilligan

  She knew her shame was mostly to do with having so many people see her in distress, but she was also ashamed that she even cared at all. Because didn’t she want to be singled out? Wasn’t that all part of being ‘special’? So then why did it bother her so much? It wasn’t like she needed her classmates to be her friends; all she needed was her faith and her family and her dedication to the cause.

  She suddenly caught the smell of vomit on her jumper. She realised, with a small smile, what she really needed was a bath.

  By the time she had made it home, she felt calmer again. Car McGrath – of all the eejits. And him just cocky after getting the only question right in his life.

  Thanks to him, my da says we’re going to break away from the Brits and be minted!

  So remember, boys and girls, if there is something you want, you just have to put in the graft. If there’s something you believe in, don’t let anybody—

  The voices were so fresh in her head, the voices in the kitchen took a bit longer to register. When she entered, they stood up. Her mam wore a purple T-shirt and a fresh dose of her newfound glow. But it wasn’t her that Úna noticed most, it was the manshape waiting next to her, his skinny hand held eager out.

  ‘This is Ronan,’ her mam began. ‘He’s a friend I made a few weeks ago so I decide to invite him round for some tea.’

  Úna glanced at the mugs, not knowing what they proved.

  All she needed was her faith and her family and her dedication to the cause.

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ When the stranger spoke, his voice was strange indeed; his vowels flat and low. ‘I’ve heard all about you. Your mother—’

  ‘He’s from Dublin,’ her mam cut in, reading her mind. ‘He’s a photographer. Isn’t that fun? I’ve been making a few suggestions to try and help him with his project.’

  It was only then that Úna saw the device sitting bulky on the table, the black leather strap hanging careless off the edge. The stranger wore jeans and a chequered shirt. He was very tall, like the men in the pictures from Civics class.

  ‘I was just explaining,’ he spoke next, ‘that I was up photographing some IRA boys yesterday and they were telling me how they used to organise cock fights along the border. It’s gas – they said they would start on the South until the Gardaí came along, then they would move north until the RUC showed up. And if there were both, the men had a raft in the middle of the river and they moved the cockerels on to that so they couldn’t—’

  ‘I’ve got homework.’ Usually Úna had a snack when she got in from school, but for now her biggest craving was for silence; for a bath full of water and a bar of rose soap that would slough off the stains of the day. She wished the man from Dublin good luck with his pictures and the raft for his cockerels. She wondered if the men kept the birds in cages just to turn them crazy and make for a better, nastier fight.

  ___________

  A while later she heard the front door close then a knock knock on the bathroom door. She lowered her head under the water and heard the thump thump of her pulse. She placed all eight of her fingers against her skin, but she didn’t feel any better. Truthfully, she didn’t really feel a thing.

  ___________

  She didn’t see Ronan the photographer again for a while, though her mother did mention him a couple of times. Apparently he was building a portfolio. Apparently, on her mam’s suggestion, he had photographed the famous Murray house that straddled the border. It was said they had two different addresses and two different postmen to deliver their letters. Úna thought how confusing that would be, not that she had ever received a letter in her life. Still her mam’s mood was a brighter shade and Úna reminded herself that that was nothing but a good thing. Even if, for some reason, she couldn’t help wondering whether Mrs P knew about Ronan or not.

  For some reason Úna already knew not to say anything in front of her.

  At school, she did her best to avoid Car McGrath and his gang. She ate her lunch down behind the prefabs or perched high on the toilet like a king on his throne. But she needn’t have worried, because soon her classmates were all distracted by other things, the arrival of Bealtaine bringing a brand-new kind of buzz.

  The first of May always meant celebrations – streamers and cakes and plenty of music; fireworks smuggled illegally south for the parties that would officially herald in the summer. Apparently the biggest festivities were over in Westmeath, on a place they called the Hill of Uisneach, where they set up torches and ribbons and all sorts of pagan stuff. They would dress the cows in hawthorn blossoms and walk them around the bonfires for good luck, then people would leap across the flames to banish demons and get positive omens for the year ahead. Of course, Úna had never attended the festivities herself – the Butchers didn’t keep those traditions. Although, now that she thought of it, weren’t the Catholics supposed to have stopped believing in all that too?

  She sighed. She wondered if it was legal for the Murray family to set off screamers and Catherine wheels from one side of their house, but illegal for them to do it from the other.

  On the day itself, the boys stayed home to help their fathers lead the cattle out to the fields, so the classroom was all girls, all of them gathered in the front two rows. They were messing about with an ancient game that supposedly predicted their future husbands. Siobhán Maguire foretold she would marry one of the Gallagher brothers from Oasis; Máire Casey foretold Car McGrath and the rest of the group fell about the place until she warned them with narrowed eyes. The riddle was another Bealtaine tradition – the girls insisted they knew it was total rubbish, but they played along with it all morning just the same. Mrs Donoghue sat at her desk attacking a tower of copybooks with the red point of her pen. Úna sat in the back row and wondered if the teacher had a husband of her own.

  Mostly, though, Úna thought of her father. The Butchers would be looping back through Longford this week, loosening the triple knots of their boots to accommodate the warmer weather.

  She wondered if it was wrong to kill a cow that had blossom in its hair.

  She wondered, for the thousandth time, who got to decide one tradition was right and another was wrong.

  For a treat, the school day ended at lunch. When Úna got home, Ronan and his camera were sitting in the kitchen. In the middle of the table a jam jar had been stuffed with tiny flowers. Úna didn’t recognise them from the garden.

  ‘Happy May Day, love,’ her mam called. ‘Are you hungry?’

  Úna dropped her empty schoolbag to the floor.

  ‘I thought you might be.’ Her mam kissed the top of her head even though Úna hadn’t said a word. ‘I’m just heating the soup – it’ll be ready in no time. And actually, it’s tomato, so it really will be reddy!’

  Úna blushed, embarrassed for a stranger to overhear their private jokes.

  Her mam left her for the hob. Still Úna hadn’t sat. She looked at Ronan slouched so comfortably in his wooden chair. But then he leaned forward. ‘Úna, tell me – I want to learn about the Butchers. And your mother says their history is your speciality.’

  Instantly Úna assumed it was some kind of trap, even though she couldn’t help but like the word. Speciality. She glanced at her mam and found only the back of her, humming beneath her breath. ‘What … what do you want to know?’

  She had barely whispered the question, but it was still enough to make Ronan smile. ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘I had never heard of the group before this trip. It started with a curse, am I right?’

  Úna gripped the shoulder of the kitchen chair and nodded. Then, ‘Yes,’ she said, just to be clear.

  ‘An ancient widow,’ he coaxed. ‘Who had lost her children, so—’

  ‘She lost her husband, too – no wonder she was angry!’ The outburst was more than she had intended. She noticed her mam stiffen, but she didn’t turn. Feeling self-conscious as much as anything, Úna sat.

  The soup took a long time to boil. She went slowly with Ronan’s questions, cagey still that
this wasn’t all some elaborate trick. She explained how a farmer’s wife had lost her entire family way back in some ancient war, so in her devastation, she had placed a curse which dictated certain rules around killing cattle.

  Henceforth, no man could slaughter alone;

  Instead, seven others had to be by his side …

  And ever since then, Úna warned, these rules had had to be adhered to or else the widow’s grief would be forgotten and the whole of Ireland would become diseased. Here she paused to catch Ronan’s laughter, but his face remained pure smooth. Her mam had taken bread from the oven. The smell was yeasty, crusty fresh.

  So Úna continued, explaining how the Butchers paid a visit to a believer’s farm once a year where some cows had been set aside for the occasion; how, depending on the position of the moon, they burned certain herbs and decided who amongst them would stand at the head and do the kill. And then how the rest of them – very gently – touched the beast as it was brought to death, thinking of grief and all the loved ones they had ever lost.

  Úna heard a crack in her voice. She coughed to cover it up and glanced behind. Her mother was beginning to ladle out.

  ‘They hang each animal by its feet, bleed and skin it, check the organs. Then they clean and process – that means butchering it all into cuts. Then on the last day of their travels, they do a special ritual for the final cow. They split the meat between all eight of them to take home to us, their families.’ The bowls arrived before them steaming. Úna picked up her tarnished spoon. ‘And it’s tastier than any of that rubbish you would find at McDonald’s!’

  The soup was sweet and it was scalding, little green herbs flecked across the top. Úna realised she hadn’t seen her mother eat so greedily in weeks. But in a funny twist, Úna was the one who wasn’t interested in food any more, only in answering question after question as they came.

  ‘How many used to believe?’

  ‘And how many are left?’

  ‘What about the knives? Three times in which direction?’

  Ronan seemed genuinely fascinated by everything she had to say.

  Úna replied as best she could – none of it was ever written down, only passed orally from one generation to the next – but she had been careful to store up as much as she could from her father over the years. And the more she spoke, the more she found she didn’t care about Car McGrath or Bealtaine celebrations or her mother’s changing moods – all that mattered was the pride she felt as she spelled out this glorious history. Not to mention this glorious future: ‘Then when I grow up, I’ve decided I’m going to be a Butcher too.’

  She made her confession before she had fully realised what she was doing. But it didn’t matter – why should she hide her intentions any longer? She knew it was years away, but why shouldn’t she tell her mother and her friend about her plan?

  And why – why was her mother laughing?

  Úna turned to her mam, her gorgeous face scrunched with some joke Úna couldn’t for the life of her make out. ‘What’s so funny?’ She tried to keep the question calm, but already she could hear the crack in her voice coming back.

  ‘Oh, darling, you can’t be a Butcher.’

  Úna had been fingering her slice of bread, but now her hand went slack. ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re a girl.’

  Instantly, Úna looked at Ronan. ‘So?’

  ‘So there has never been a girl Butcher. No – you’ll be the one left behind twiddling your thumbs and making soup for eleven months of the year.’ Then, as if to sweeten the bitterness that had started to creep in to her voice, her mother reached across and squeezed her hand.

  In the silence, Úna noticed her eyes turning wet. Maybe it was the steam from the soup. Maybe it was another spring symptom – the hay fever starting to do its rounds. But whatever it was, she couldn’t stop it; most of all, she couldn’t stand the weight of Ronan’s stare.

  When she pushed back from the table, some of the soup spilled over the rim of her bowl. She saw it seep red into the wood.

  Úna kept her rage down as she crossed the garden until she was safely inside the shed, then she kicked out in fury, slamming her anger against the freezer door, which burst open, almost as if it were erupting too. Through her tears, she saw the cuts of meat inside, more purple than they were red, the white marbling of fat pressed up against the plastic. They had been stacked in such a way to fit the maximum amount. A year of cow – properly killed. A weekly treat for the ones who were left behind.

  Úna steadied her breath and went to close the door, but she found her hands reaching in instead. First she pulled out a shank, cartoon fat and wrapped in cellophane. They would save it for a special occasion – a birthday or an anniversary or even an extra visit home to them in June.

  As it thudded against the wall, the whole shed shook. The tools tinkled from their shelves like bells. Úna reached again. This time it was a pair of sirloins. She lashed them straight for the pots of nails and screws on the shelf, the spill like a shower of bullet casings; like the Troubles they kept saying were nearly over. She went again with fillets and rumps, a T-bone that cracked the window, though the sunlight that poured in was nothing against the billows of dirt and dust. Úna threw one frozen lump and then another, until the bottom drawer was almost done – the offal that meant they were down to the very last of it. She wondered which one was the heart so she could throw it extra hard, break it in two or maybe even three, because in the end, that was all a family was – just three different bits that would never understand each other no matter how many questions you asked; no matter how many secret rituals you had; no matter how hard you ignored the bullies and the loneliness and the strangers slouching around your kitchen table.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Through the dust, Úna saw her mam out on the grass, her green eyes flitting over the carnage. Úna thought, of all things, of the fox. She hadn’t seen or heard her in a while.

  ‘Úna, what the hell—’

  ‘I hate you.’ She couldn’t deny the flicker of satisfaction she felt as she watched her mam wince. But she also knew the statement wasn’t quite right. So instead of taking it back, she tried again. ‘I hate the Butchers.’

  Sure enough, this seemed to hurt her mother even more. ‘You don’t mean that, love,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I laughed. I’m sorry—’

  ‘I hope that something bad happens to them out there.’

  But for all the things that were said that afternoon – that beautiful Bealtaine afternoon – they both knew this one was the worst. They stared at each other, a mother and a daughter surrounded by a mess of muscle and flesh; a mother and a daughter who sometimes felt so lonely they shared one bed. A chill ran through Úna’s bones, a shiver that lingered long after her mam had pulled her close, murmuring into her hair while Úna sobbed into her chest, and the freezer fuse had blown itself to bits.

  Grá

  County Cavan, May 1996

  She could still hear the bath draining itself, the sound a wet and mangled choke. She unwound her towel and stared at her reflection. For better or worse, a little weight had come back on.

  She opened her drawer for knickers and a bra and tried not to notice herself selecting. The radio on the side was yapping about the Eurovision Song Contest that was happening in Norway next week. Ireland was going for its seventh win – such an accolade! – with a song called ‘The Voice’. Grá turned it off then immediately regretted the silence.

  Earlier, she had cooked Úna’s favourite meal and waited for her to utter those all-important words: What’s the special on the menu tonight? Since last week, her daughter hadn’t asked the question once. After dinner, they had packed Úna’s bag and walked against a sunset over to Mrs P’s. The older woman was delighted to welcome her guest, if just a little too curious about the reasons for her overnight stay. ‘A book club, you said?’

  ‘I saw it advertised in the Anglo-Celt.’

  ‘You never mentioned.’

  ‘I
thought it might be nice to do something for myself for once.’

  ‘Finishes late, does it?’

  The air between them had stiffened, Mrs P squinting like she could suddenly read it all. But then she had softened. ‘My Sol takes a couple of books with him on the road. I always ask if he could take me in his bag instead and he promises that, one year, he will.’

  In her bedroom now, Grá looked at the blue dress hanging lifeless from the silver hanger. The sleeves were long, but the neckline low. She thought about earrings, but didn’t want to overdo it. Her hair was static from the bath’s condensation – she would brush and spray it if she had the time. Cúch always preferred it up; but she, what did she prefer?

  ‘And how has she been?’ Mrs P had shifted tack next, lowering her voice and flicking her eyes towards the kitchen door where her guest had already sprinted to discover what array of delicious treats had been prepared.

  Grá had barely explained the half of what she had found in the garden last week, only that Úna had had a little episode. She hadn’t mentioned the meat across the grass or the things that had been said – the real and the ridiculous and the devastating.

  She hadn’t mentioned, for various reasons, Ronan.

  He had quit the house straight away so that Grá could tend to her hyperventilating daughter. She had pressed eight fingertips against Úna’s sweat-soaked skin until she found her breath again. Together they had managed to change the freezer fuse and save most of the meat, but they both knew the words, no, the words could not be saved.

  I hope that something bad happens to them out there.

  Grá could tell Úna was trying to figure out what exactly made a curse a curse.

  But it wasn’t superstition that had kept Grá awake that night as she spooned her darling daughter; wasn’t even sadness or fear for what it all might mean. Instead, it was rage – pure rage aimed out across the blackness, over the sleeping fields to where a group of eight men had set up camp at the side of the road. Because the price of her husband’s absence she could just about pay (even if, recently, she had been struggling with it more and more), but at some point she had obviously lost sight of just how much it was hurting their child. Grá had tossed in bed all night, the anger soaking her own skin in sweat.