The Butchers

by Ruth Gilligan

  ‘What about the new modern stretch by Castlebar?’

  ‘Ah yes, another lovely European-funded road.’

  Davey thought of his mother and her recent questions.

  … a direct bus you can take from here to County Cavan?

  … anyone hitchhiking around these parts?

  He wondered if it was something to do with her haphazard dreams.

  Helter-skelter.

  He wondered if the lad had managed to figure out the crossword clue.

  ‘Right, before we turn in …’ It was the oldest amongst them, though, who did finally inject a bit of ceremony into the evening. As Sol spoke, the debate petered out, though a consensus still hadn’t been agreed upon. ‘I’d like to propose a toast. To Paddy Dwyer.’

  Davey felt confused, then he felt something else. Con’s breath was hot on his neck. ‘The guy we were supposed to visit today,’ he whispered. ‘The one who hanged himself in his barn.’

  Since they hadn’t been using cups, most of the men just raised their fists in acknowledgement.

  ‘The loss of a believer,’ one agreed, ‘is always a tragedy.’

  But Sol was quick to correct. ‘It is a tragedy for any man. And for his wife to find him like that? God knows my missis would be beyond cure.’ His face dug deep with empathy, all the higgledy lines like an ancient map full of well-trodden routes. ‘Here’s to the Farmer’s Widow, that we may honour her grief. Right, lads, we’ve an early start. And, Davey?’ Here the pain gave way to a gentle nod. ‘It’s been a pleasure. You’re very welcome any time you like.’

  ___________

  Again, they walked in silence. Davey could feel the whiskey in his forehead. He didn’t want to go home. He wanted to know what a word like ‘home’ meant to men who slept under makeshift tents.

  Of all the things, he spoke of the old man. ‘Sol said he remembers my mum.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be surprised,’ Con replied. ‘He’s been at this almost fifty years – he remembers everyone. Apparently his wife made him promise to stop when they had kids, but it turned out they weren’t able. Then he offered to retire when he was sixty – his health hasn’t been great – but by then she could see how much he loved it; how much he wanted to keep going. So in the end she agreed – she said a promise was a promise was a promise – and now he calls her “Mrs P” for short.’ Con stopped. ‘Which reminds me – I’ll have to think of a cute nickname for you.’

  Davey felt a fresh rush of heat to his face. He racked his brains for a coy suggestion. Then he realised they had made it back to the main road and he wasn’t coy at all. ‘When will I see you again?’

  Con cast his eyes across the fields. A flock of shorn sheep were trying out their new skin. Con’s own hair fell over his ears in pale yellow curls. ‘The change in route has cocked things up,’ he said. ‘And if some farms really are contaminated, we’re going to have to reassess.’ When he looked back, though, he must have seen Davey’s expression. ‘I suppose I could … Will you be in O’Connell’s on Saturday night?’

  Davey tried very hard not to pounce on the offer. Instead he just nodded. ‘You should all come along. I promise no one will mind.’ He thought again of Faela’s kindness this afternoon; of what she may or may not have seen. And he tried very hard not to flinch when Con leaned forward to place his mouth on his – not with tongues and teeth; not with clambered hands and stifled shock like in the byre – but with a tenderness that left Davey even more confused; even more aroused.

  He walked home slowly, a whiskey weave, making up crossword clues in his head. He didn’t know how he was supposed to fit them all together. He only knew that Saturday night would be the beginning – or maybe the end – of everything.

  I promise no one will mind.

  He knew now that a promise was a promise was a promise.

  Fionn

  County Monaghan, June 1996

  ‘Fergus, it’s Fionn. Fionn McCready. It’s just gone half past seven on Saturday evening. Or I suppose at this stage, Saturday night, depending on your particular persuasion. I was just calling to see how you were getting on. It’s been over a week now and I was wondering … I appreciate the last border run was a messy business, but you will let me know when the next one is happening, won’t you? Or frankly, if there are any other jobs the Bull might be needing a hand with. It’s just … anyway, look. Speak soon, OK?’

  Fionn nestled the phone into its cradle and waited as if it might suddenly jolt back to life, Lazarus from the dead. The cord loop-the-looped down to his knees and back again. He was trying to limit himself to three phone calls a day – he was familiar with the concept of ‘overkill’. He was also familiar with the concept of ‘lying low’. He knew last week’s operation was, all things considered, a spectacular fuck-up; knew just how tickled pink the Gardaí were when they threw him and Fergus into the piss-dingy confines of that station cell. And he knew how fuming they were when they appeared the following morning to say there had been a ‘change in circumstance’. Never mind how much the Bull had slipped into the back pocket of their bosses’ uniforms, it clearly pained the honest lads to see them walking free.

  So of course, those wankers from Operation Matador couldn’t be given an opportunity to catch them out again. But even apart from the border antics, Fionn knew the Bull had other moneymaking tricks up his bespoke tailored sleeve. So he just needed to get through to Fergus Hynes and make it clear that he was willing to do whatever it took; just needed to get that kitty topped up all the way before everything else was spectacularly fucked up too.

  ‘I thought I heard you talking to someone?’

  Fionn jolted back to life. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘No, just me.’ Eileen’s laugh was a gentle thing. ‘Guilty conscience?’

  Fionn was aware she was only teasing, and yet.

  She wore a matted dressing gown and a towel wrapped around her head like some queen from a faraway land. The arrangement at least hid how little hair there was underneath. Fionn caught a heady waft of lavender. ‘Nice bath?’

  ‘Fionn, we wouldn’t happen to have any maps?’ If she heard his question, she was ignoring it. She hadn’t commented on his absence the other day. She had probably assumed he was just so busy mucking the fields he had decided not to come in for lunch. Inside the cell, his biggest fear had been that – Murphy’s Law – that would be the day Eileen’s brain would finally decide to glitch and throw a seizure. He had pictured her lying there, twitching like a moth around a bulb. God knows her wings were as delicate.

  ‘Maps?’ But even if his nightmare hadn’t been realised, here was more proof that her brain was still awry. He glanced at the telephone. If only he had an address for Fergus Hynes. ‘You mean like an atlas, love?’

  ‘Just Ordnance Survey. Local roads, neighbouring counties – that sort of thing.’

  Fionn frowned; he wondered if this was something to do with her latest batch of dreams. ‘How about—’

  His answer, though, was cut short by the pounding of footsteps down the stairs. Davey hurtled breathless into the kitchen. He wore a shirt that had courted an iron and an excessive slick of gel in his hair. He looked from one parent to the other. It was so rare to have all three of them in the same room together. ‘I’m going out,’ he said quickly. ‘Look after yourself, Mum.’

  ‘You too, pet.’

  Fionn saw them share a look of untarnished love. He saw they didn’t share it with him.

  Just as quickly as he had arrived, Davey vanished again. Fionn thought he caught another waft – a sort of musk. When he was gone, he asked: ‘Should we be worried about him? He’s acting even odder than usual.’

  Eileen laughed the same gentle laugh as before. ‘No, pet, I don’t think we need to worry. He’s just finding his way.’ And as she vanished too, Fionn felt an unexpected pang, wondering if his wife would live to see the day their oddball son walked some oddball girl down the aisle.

  To cheer himself up, Fionn thought back – as he so often did – to
the moment he clapped eyes on Eileen for the very first time. He had been sent down for a few weeks to his dying uncle’s farm to lend a hand for the calving season. Fionn would stay awake into the wee hours, the jack and the iodine and the ropes ready by his side. He had learned it was nearly time when the girls started walking in circles, standing up and sitting down, sniffing the dirt to see if anything had yet come out.

  There had been ten calves so far, or eleven if you counted the one that hadn’t managed to make it all the way. The hide had been such a shocking shade of blue it was clear the infant had been gone from this world for a while. The mother had licked it anyway, determined that love and instinct were more than enough to make a miracle. Fionn’s uncle lived on the farm by himself. He had never had any children of his own.

  And even by then, Fionn had wondered if he might end up the very same – it wasn’t uncommon, lads too devoted to their land to bother with the seeking out or shacking up. Some waited until the eleventh hour, then moseyed over to the Ballroom of Romance – the infamous Leitrim dancehall filled with waltzes and hormones and desperate last-ditch attempts. Then of course, Lisdoonvarna hosted the annual Matchmaking Festival where surveys were filled out and pairings formally arranged. Rumour had it the weekend was fair old craic – they got in some decent country bands to play. They said the conversion rate was reasonably high.

  But after the twelfth calf just about made it, Fionn had taken a celebratory saunter through his uncle’s village. He picked up a battered sausage and chips for his tea, a double portion as a treat. Outside the video shop he had found her staring at the poster in the window, Elizabeth Taylor with her sultry eyes and her pouting lips. When he enquired, she said her name was Lena and that she had been born just up the road; said she loved going to the pictures, but that otherwise she was bored out of her skull. She didn’t say anything about her sister or her family’s beliefs (though they would have to deal with all of that soon enough). She didn’t ask before dipping one of his chips into his ketchup pool.

  Within just four weeks his uncle passed away, the twelve calves were sold and Eileen agreed to be his leading lady. Two decades later, Fionn drank himself into such a stupor that his fists broke her nose and her jaw and her heart. Another year and she was diagnosed with a lump in her brain and he knew without a doubt that it was all his fault.

  He thought he had finally discovered how to make amends. It suddenly seemed his plan might not make it all the way.

  ___________

  He paused just outside the door to O’Connell’s, trying to decide whether he was about to make yet another catastrophic mistake. Behind him, the car park was rammed – come midnight, they would all navigate the country roads home in a stupor with astonishing swerves. Above him, the clouds were soaked in a violent crimson.

  Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.

  Fionn spared a thought for the Butchers. God knows he believed in superstitions more than ever these days.

  It had been three years since he last stepped inside O’Connell’s – or any other pub, for that matter. He licked his lips and practised his order in his head. A pint of red lemonade, no ice. It was like learning a foreign language. He had decided he would give it an hour and if there was no sign of Fergus Hynes he would cut his losses, but when Fionn held his breath and stepped inside, the first thing he noticed was the badger streak across the room. The second thing he noticed was the wall of stale beer and stale heat that greeted him, so thick and solid it could almost be chewed. He squeezed through the swell of the crowd; heard someone humming a few notes, tuning up to let an old ballad rip.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Fergus’s exclamation was so aggressive it caused the rest of the booth to sit up straight. ‘The dairy dickhead himself.’ A ripple of phlegmatic laughs. ‘And it just so happens, the next one’s your round.’

  Fionn opened his mouth then closed it; simply nodded and made his way towards the bar, circumnavigating the mob gathered below the tele. He presumed it was for the soccer – he knew two of the Euro ’96 quarter-finals were being played today. But Fionn saw it was actually the president of the Irish Farmer’s Association on the screen, making yet another speech – demanding that more be done to protect Irish beef. Still consumer confidence was dwindling; still no source for the BSE coming to Ireland had been officially confirmed. At this rate, everything could fall apart at the hastily stitched seams.

  Fionn felt his own seams hanging on by the thinnest of threads.

  ‘Mr McCready, what can I get you?’

  Faela Quin was a surprise, not because Fionn hadn’t heard that she was working here now, but because he had assumed she was the reason behind Davey’s fancy get-up tonight – a reunion date. He must have had it arseways, though – there must have been another girl on the scene – another thing about his son Fionn didn’t know or understand.

  ‘Ages since you’ve been here.’ The next time Faela spoke, Fionn could have sworn there was a hint of implication in her words, but of course he knew the situation wasn’t how it looked. He knew the sooner the pints were poured, the sooner he could have a quiet word in Fergus’s ear then get the hell out of this godforsaken place.

  ___________

  ‘What do you reckon, Milky Moo?’

  Faela had at least provided a tray so he was able to lower the whole batch on to the table in one go. The hands shot out quickly to lay their grubby claim. There wasn’t so much as a grunt of gratitude.

  ‘Reckon about what?’

  ‘Oh, Mossy is just raging because another importer from Europe cancelled on him yesterday. He’s worried if he goes broke, his missis will do a runner.’

  ‘And she could,’ Mossy wailed. ‘Properly like. Thanks to this new bloody law.’

  Fionn sat. He knew Mossy was referring to the Divorce Bill that was after going through on Monday. It was official – a marriage no longer had to be for ever.

  ‘Can you believe it?’ Fergus slurred next to him. ‘What’s the country coming to? First the gays and now this.’

  Fergus, meanwhile, was referring to the other new law that had been brought in three years ago – the one that meant being a homosexual was no longer a crime. Oh Modern Ireland was on its way, all right, but no one had warned them it came at a very modern price. ‘A nation of faggots and divorcees.’

  Properly or otherwise, Fionn had been terrified Eileen would leave him after what he had done, but instead she had stood by her vow – for better and for worse – and now he was standing by his – in sickness and in health. He thought of twenty-five years of marriage. He wanted there to be so many more. ‘Fergus,’ he muttered, ‘I was wondering if I could have a wee word?’

  ‘That’s what the priest said in Mass this evening.’ It was Briain Ní Ghríofa talking next. ‘That the country’s soul is going up in flames.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what brought the BSE over here – punishment from an angry God.’

  ‘Bit Old fucking Testament, wouldn’t you say?’

  Fionn gobbed his lemonade and wondered if Eileen might join him at Mass tomorrow; wondered if he should just go the whole hog and take her off for a pilgrimage to Lourdes – sure, wasn’t that where the devout brought all their sick to be healed? A quick splash-about with the Virgin Mary and any tumours or seizures would do a runner for good?

  ‘Fergus, it’s about the work,’ he tried again. ‘I’m keen to keep going, you see?’

  ‘Well, have yous any better ideas where it came from?’

  ‘What about that pesticide they’re saying has some dodgy chemical in it? Same as the Nazis used to use?’

  ‘Fergus,’ Fionn whispered louder, ‘please.’

  ‘Or what about the badgers – weren’t they to blame for spreading the TB?’

  ‘Let’s shoot the bastards before it’s too late.’

  ‘Shoot those Matadors, more like.’

  ‘She’ll leave me,’ Mossy wailed. ‘I just know!’

  Until finally, Fergus put his glass down and lumbered hi
s torso round. He pawed his hand through his hair, the dirty black mass with the tarnished silver lining. ‘The Bull,’ he slurred, ‘has no more jobs.’ He thrust his face forward so his jowls were only inches from Fionn’s. His breath was a cesspit of stout. ‘In fact, do you want to know a secret, Milky Moo?’ And Fionn simply nodded again to indicate that yes, he did. ‘It’s over,’ Fergus said with a smirk. ‘The whole thing is fucking kaput.’

  Fionn stood up in such a panic that he clobbered the table, a searing pain in his left kneecap for his troubles. As he dragged his dead leg away he thought of Glassy and her wonky walk, a spastic jive every time she entered the yard.

  By now the pub was full to bursting, standing room only, so he had to use his elbows to shove his way through. The heat of the mob was thick to inhale. A couple of the drunker bodies shoved back. Watch where you’re going, lad! The glass pane on the front door was dripping wet, and next to it sat a boy on a stool. He was surrounded by an air of such inordinate neatness that he stood out a mile from this foul place. ‘Davey?’ Fionn’s brain struggled, yet again, to make sense of what was happening. ‘What are you doing here?’ But soon enough it caught up – his son was obviously just waiting for Faela; was obviously taking her out once she finished her shift. Somewhere beneath his panic, Fionn felt joy or maybe even relief that the two youngsters were an item again.

  Davey stood up to meet him. ‘Don’t you think that’s a bit rich coming from you?’ He suddenly looked bigger than usual, almost a full head taller than Fionn.

  ‘I only just arrived.’ Fionn tried his best to stay calm. ‘And now I’m going home, all right?’ But of course, everything wasn’t all right – even if Fergus hadn’t told him as much, Fionn could feel it now, rising up on the stale air. The heat and the drink; the mob tuning up and shoving back. ‘Davey,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you should be in here.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Things are getting sloppy,’ Fionn continued, still as calm as he could. ‘With everything that’s been going on, and the president’s speech this afternoon … I mean it, I’m sure Faela won’t mind – would you not come home with me?’