The Butchers

by Ruth Gilligan

  Her body treaded water a little harder. It had opinions of its own.

  She wondered if he had managed to find the Butchers and persuade them to sit for a photograph; if he had aimed the camera at her husband knowing what he had so recently done with his wife. She hated the power that gave him, but she forced herself to remember it was her own power that had brought the whole thing about – even if the sin was hideous, it had at least been her own.

  Grá thought of her rebel sister, the final absence in the unholy trinity. She closed her green eyes and dunked her head below.

  When she was ready to resurface, she felt something around her leg. It was just a weed, ankle-slicked. She kicked it off. When it stayed, she felt a flash of panic, then stemmed it at once. She would use her other foot to free herself.

  She kicked again. The weed slicked around the other foot too.

  Grá opened her eyes. The lake water was far filthier than she had expected. She squinted for other legs, for skin that was pale as ever. But the wall of shadows was eel black. She kicked out for a third time.

  And surely by now the other two had noticed? They must have been worried? Must have seen the bubbles on the surface like a Morse Code SOS! Unless, of course, they were deliberating whether or not to help – a flicker of grudges; a list of recent slights. Like an old friend acting odd with book club visits and no invite extended, or a mother with a new friend and a new kind of laughter in her eyes.

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

  Grá felt her chest tighten; felt her limbs start to thrash.

  You’re a girl.

  Flapping like the wings of a swan.

  There has never been a girl Butcher.

  ‘You all right?’

  The air, when her lungs found it, tasted different entirely. Grá opened her eyes.

  ‘Silly goose. I thought you said you could swim?’

  The sun, ever witty, had finally emerged from the clouds. Grá tilted her head like she could swallow it in yellow gulps.

  ___________

  When they arrived back, the house was empty as a promise. The biscuits on the table had turned chewy. Úna declared herself ‘starving’ and ate five in a row, swallowing noisily, until Grá told her to stop. Mrs P glanced out the window and remarked on the garden – she had never seen it grow so wild. She was clearly lingering for the offer of tea, but Grá was desperate to draw a bath; to wash off the lake and everything else.

  ___________

  Later, over dinner – no menu; no special tonight – Úna recounted all the things she and Mrs P had discussed on the walk. Like the government’s promise to finally shut down the last ever Magdalene Laundry this year. Or that Irish swimmer Michelle Smith off to the Olympics this month. Or that journalist Veronica Guerin shot dead in Dublin. Apparently she had been working on a story about a group of gangsters – all men – so one of them had decided to try shutting her up.

  Across the table, Grá shuddered. She had read the obituary, all right – mother of one; only four years younger than herself. Last Thursday there had been a national minute of silence. Grá wondered if, as the whole country fell hush, any of those men had heard their conscience at last.

  ‘Did you know Mrs P wanted to be a journalist?’

  Of all the things Grá thought she would hear, this wasn’t one. ‘Really?’ Her voice, she noticed, had the trace of a smirk.

  ‘She did a course and everything. Long before she was married. Even had some articles in the Irish Times.’

  Still Grá felt the instinct to laugh, to disbelieve. Or maybe it was more to do with hurt? That her friend had never shared these things?

  That she had never thought to ask?

  ‘Mam, why didn’t Dad visit in June like he said he would?’ Her daughter’s question quelled all the other questions.

  ‘You knew about that?’

  ‘I heard you,’ Úna said. ‘The night before he left.’

  Grá blushed. ‘I wouldn’t worry, love—’

  ‘Well then, why hasn’t he come?’

  Despite her instruction, Grá heard the beginnings of worry, all right. ‘It’s just this BSE stuff,’ she tried. ‘The whole country has gone a little mad.’ Instantly, she regretted the joke.

  ‘But he’s definitely OK.’ The way Úna said it was less of a question than a statement. And yet, Grá knew her answer still needed to come instantly. It could be Of course or Don’t be silly or even Why wouldn’t he be? though the last one would bring its own set of complications. A better mother would take the lie even further. He already called – said he was coming in September instead. But Grá knew she wasn’t better. In fact, these days she knew she had gotten so much worse.

  He’s definitely OK.

  You’re a girl.

  You know, I have a feeling that he isn’t.

  ‘Like I said, love, I really wouldn’t worry.’ Grá looked at the clock. The minute’s silence spilled into another and then another and then another.

  ___________

  Úna, eventually, had been persuaded up to bed. Still their bowls sat dirty and untouched. Grá thought back to the water, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have kicked; if maybe she should have just let Nature win.

  But there was worried and there was pathetic, so eventually she forced herself to stand. She slipped a small square of paper from behind the noticeboard and dialled the number written across. As she counted them out, she could have sworn each ring was louder than the last. She pictured her daughter swallowing those biscuits one after the other after the other. For a second, she had thought Úna was trying to make herself sick. There were so many things she didn’t want to pass down to her daughter, but that would be the very worst.

  After the seventh ring, Grá sighed and hung up, annoyed and relieved in unequal measure. She took the bowls to the sink and let the water run until it was scalding to the touch. When the phone rang, her hands flinched in fright, spraying technicolour suds. She wiped them on her jeans and allowed herself one last question before she picked up. Because of the two men she knew would be at the end of this line, which one did she most want it to be?

  It seemed, in that moment, the question that would decide everything.

  ‘Hi there, I’m sorry I missed a call from this number. Who—’

  In the silence her question played again. ‘Ronan? It’s me.’ And then she added quickly to be sure: ‘It’s Grá.’

  From behind, she could hear the bubbles fizzing in the sink. It sounded the same as static on a wire.

  ‘Oh.’ When he spoke, there was no denying his surprise, though there were all sorts of surprises it could have been. ‘Great to hear from you. How have you been?’

  She couldn’t decide if platitudes meant one sort as opposed to another.

  She told him she had been fine and he said he had been too. She thought of his moods and the pills he sometimes took to help. But she couldn’t linger. ‘I didn’t know who to call. It’s the Butchers – I’m sure they’re grand, but I just wanted to check if you had heard anything?’ Grá pictured him sprawled across his couch or maybe hunched in his darkroom, his face lit up by the red fuzzing light. She had asked him to describe the process to her, dipping his pictures blank into the liquid, then watching them emerge alive. It was a metamorphosis every time; a chrysalis into a butterfly; a change beyond recognition. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I phoned. I suppose if you hear anything just let me know. Otherwise best of luck with the exhibition – I hope you finally found that killer shot to pull it all together!’ She was going to hang up – she really was – thinking now of the last time she saw him. The bed sheet had fallen below her breasts and she had left them there, cold and tender.

  ‘Grá, wait.’

  Those two words brought more relief to her body than they should have. Which was ironic, given all the things they brought next.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just, I assumed you would have heard. I knew they were waiting for … Jesus, Grá.’ His tone had
changed; there was breathing now and there was plenty. There was her name and then there was the Lord’s name too. She realised she had never thought to ask Ronan a thing about religion; about whether he had any faith of his own.

  ‘Grá.’ The way he said it, she knew to close her eyes. ‘They found a body.’ The darkness gave the picture a better backdrop to emerge. ‘One of the Butchers … Grá, I can’t believe …’ Feature by feature, rising out of the liquid. ‘I assumed you would already know.’

  But how could she tell him that what we believe and what we assume and what we know are never really the same?

  ___________

  As the night bled on, Grá watched the darkness rise up around her like a flood. From the back garden, she thought she heard barking, but she knew it was wishful thinking; knew there was little chance the orphaned cubs had managed to survive. Her body refused to move, whereas her restless mind began to wander, reaching for snapshots of the past to kill the time.

  There was her in her wedding dress, grinning amidst the clumps of marigolds she had stuffed fat into jars. There was Cúch in her parents’ kitchen the very first day she saw him, a dimple dug deep into each handsome cheek. And there was another image from another day, which proved – yet again, it seemed – that she had been lying to herself all along. Because this wasn’t the first time her husband had promised to come home during his travels, although the last time the promise had been kept.

  The nurse had warned them that the due date was rarely accurate, but that was the date he aimed for nonetheless. And sure enough, no sooner had he stepped in the door, her waters broke. It was a lake from her and of her and beneath her.

  He had filled the bath like they had discussed and dialled the midwife’s phone. Grá held his hand, the same hand that drew death every day. She heaved her pain into the water, an agony that was dulled, but fuck it was agony still.

  Úna didn’t linger, as if she knew there was only so long her father could stick around. The final push felt a lot like drowning – Grá’s head rushed with the pressure and the gasping and the bubbles on surface like a Morse Code SOS!

  When Úna screamed, Grá recognised nothing of herself.

  Some time later, after the midwife had guided her through to the bedroom, Grá’s vision finally returned. She found Cúch kneeling on the floor beside her, head bowed, muttering a silent prayer. When he lifted his face it was drenched. ‘You are a miracle,’ he told Grá. ‘I believe in you more than I have ever believed in anything.’

  After a moment, Úna screamed again. This time Grá recognised nothing of herself but love.

  ___________

  ‘Mam?’ When Úna appeared now, she wore pyjamas and socks, her voice part concern, part croaky with sleep.

  The kitchen had begun to lighten, which meant it was almost dawn.

  ‘Mam,’ she tried again. ‘Will I make you a cup of tea?’

  Grá opened her mouth.

  They found a body.

  ‘What about a biscuit?’

  One of the Butchers …

  ‘What about this?’

  She looked down. Eight fingers were placed on her arm. She couldn’t feel a single one.

  Grá, I can’t believe … I assumed you would already know …

  But that was the worst bit, because of course deep down she had already known, and for some reason she had still thought that she could survive.

  ___________

  Eventually Úna had persuaded her up for a bath and Grá had wondered, too late: Did I ever tell you, love, you were even born a special way? But the longer she stood, the more she couldn’t face the prospect of the water. Instead, she decided she might just never wash again. It could be a mourning ritual, plucked out of thin air, but didn’t everyone love a good superstition? The stranger and dirtier the better?

  The Curse of the Butcher’s Widow.

  She would spread the word far and wide; would let the dead cells gather around her like a shroud.

  She hadn’t thought to ask Ronan where the body was found; hadn’t even thought to ask how the man was killed. She looked out the bathroom window. In the distance, a tractor beheaded the grass. The trees listed their branches to the left. Everything was the same – the fields the clouds the muck the ruts from the cart wheels down the hill.

  Even as they approached, very slowly, they seemed to stay out of focus, the edges fuzzed like a dream or a memory. Grá counted the figures one at a time, then she counted them again. She craved every one of those awful biscuits.

  Sure enough, there were only seven – seven pairs of shoulders burdened with the news they were about to give, thinking they were the first. Grá looked down on her flesh as if she had just remembered. She supposed she should at least meet her fate in clothes.

  As she hurried to get dressed, she heard her daughter. ‘Mam, quick!’ Grá fumbled the button on her skirt and ran down the stairs. Out in the driveway, there they were, standing solemn in an arc. And in the centre, there he was, looking up at her. ‘Hello, love.’

  Her heart stopped. Her head stopped seeing the world in snapshots. No, everything was clear and fluid again.

  Her husband was alive.

  Her husband was home.

  It was the third day of July.

  ‘Cúch!’ She threw herself into his warmth and felt him flinch as if she had landed him a kick. ‘I’m sorry.’ She couldn’t even begin to explain what for. But there would be time – so much time now – to make every kind of amends. When she eventually pulled away, she knew she was ready to start. ‘Let me do you some lunch.’ She knew she was ready, even, to attempt a joke. ‘Although you realise you’re late, young man? Three days and counting?’ She could have told him how many seconds, how many minutes, how many hours.

  Cúch’s face matched none of her laughter. It was only now that she noticed the bruises, yellow and black around his eyes. Grá thought again of rapeseed; of eels slithering in between legs. And then she checked the other faces where, sure enough, all six were battered too. She held her breath before she said the missing word. ‘Sol?’

  Davey

  County Monaghan, July 1996

  ‘Do you know what time the results are supposed to be in?’ Davey sat sequestered on a stool at the O’Connell’s bar, wrapping knives and forks in red paper napkins. The pub had started serving lunch – more than just packets of crisps or Scampi Fries. The locals deemed it fierce fancy altogether. Behind the bar, Faela was down on her hunkers trying to detach an empty keg that had got stuck. Apart from them, only a couple of regulars were propping the place up. It had only just gone eleven o’clock.

  ‘If there’s no word by three,’ Davey continued, ‘I’ll nip down to the police station. It is definitely supposed to be today, isn’t it?’ He smoothed a napkin and swaddled the next cutlery pair like an infant babe, tucking it snug and tight around the corners.

  Except for the grey mid-morning light that filtered in through the windows, O’Connell’s looked much the same as it always did. There was no shattered glass or splintered wood; no banjaxed stools or dark spots of blood. In fact, the only trace of damage from the fight was the gap on the wall where the lucky hurl used to reside. Davey wondered what it meant for local luck. He wondered if they could get someone to whittle a replacement.

  ‘They won’t tell us everything, but at least we will know the cause of death. That should narrow it down, shouldn’t it?’

  All morning, Davey had been asking these unanswered questions. He had headed down to the cold store as soon as he woke. The perimeter of the site was still cordoned off with tendrils of yellow tape that made a smacking noise against the wind. The same Garda had been stationed there all week, a shortish lad with a moustache that looked almost definitely stuck on. Davey had plied him for details:

  ‘Any witnesses come forward?’

  ‘I heard the autopsy results are due today?’

  ‘Do you have any inclination yourself?’

  The Garda looked at him so blankly it was as
if Davey were speaking in tongues.

  ‘Got it!’ It was Faela speaking now. She rolled the old keg out on its side, then showed Davey the fresh one that needed bringing in. He reversed the proceedings and manoeuvred the thing upright under the pump, its metal arse sounding a boxing-bell clang.

  While Faela did the attachment, Davey recounted his own inclination. ‘I still think the Bull is the most likely suspect. After all, Sol’s body was found in his shed. I haven’t figured out the why, but maybe he had beef with the Butchers, if you’ll pardon the—’

  ‘Davey, would you ever cop yourself on!’

  He stopped. He couldn’t tell if Faela was angry or just sick to death – he had been in here most mornings this week asking the very same things. But when she stood up, her face was softer. Her red hair was brushed shiny and smooth. ‘Look, Davey, I know what you saw in that cold store must have been horrific.’ She swiped her hand through the air as if underlining the word. ‘But in terms of who actually did it …’ He noticed her nails were painted bright pink. ‘I don’t understand why you care so much?’

  In the days following the O’Connell’s brawl, Davey had wandered around in a daze. Each night he lay awake until morning, then took himself off on a walk. And even when his ears had stopped ringing from the thunder of the fight, the reality of what he had wanted from that evening refused to go quiet. He had, very carefully, picked out what to wear. He had, very patiently, waited for Con. As soon as the Butchers had arrived, he had, very quickly, melted. And he had peeled his eyes for the moment he and Con could slip away and do … what – something? Everything? More than a confused fumble in a byre or a brief peck on the lips, that was for sure. So even if things had gone horribly wrong (Davey could remember the terror of the crush, the wet sound of knuckles pounding flesh), surely he could no longer ignore the new inclination he had about himself?

  Until one morning when he was out walking, struggling with all these unanswered questions, he passed the disused cold store and noticed its door was left ajar. Davey entered and saw the boots set neatly to the side, then he saw the hook and the feet and the two holes in the flesh. So regardless of how horrific it was, Davey was trying to stay focused on that image – everything else was another story entirely. And unlike the ancient myths, this one was happening right here and now, and it left Davey completely terrified.