The Butchers

by Ruth Gilligan

  ___________

  Habit – or was it tradition? – wanted to lead her left towards Mrs P’s, but Úna broke with all of that and turned right down the road instead. She ran, pumping her arms and legs, and didn’t check behind – she knew her parents wouldn’t be following. What she didn’t know was whether that made her hate them any more or less.

  The light was fading but not quite gone, the magpies flitting branch to branch, swallowing late-evening bugs they caught on the wing. The tarmac held the residual warmth of the afternoon’s sunshine. Úna suddenly remembered she wasn’t wearing anything on her feet.

  A motorbike zoomed past, too close, so she veered a little nearer to the ditch. A van driver honked his horn and shouted something out his window about her arse. Úna felt the tights chafe a bit deeper; felt her limbs move a bit faster as the whip of the wind kept the worst of the moisture from her eyes.

  She saw the turn for the playground and followed it, the path a slightly different texture underfoot. Back in her homeschooling days, her mam had taken her here for ‘PE’ classes once a week. Apart from a dented slide, some monkey bars and two rusty swings, there wasn’t much to speak of. Úna had loved to turn the swing in a circle, winding the chains tighter and tighter, then let go with her head thrown back and spin.

  When she spotted Car McGrath on one of the swings, the first thing she noticed was the state of his hair. It had gone gaudy over the summer, big orange blotches from spraying too much cheap and nasty bleach. The second thing she noticed was his dinner. Úna couldn’t believe McDonald’s was brazen enough to still be selling burgers. She couldn’t believe anyone was stupid enough to still be buying them.

  Her pace faltered until it stopped. Her chest felt as if it was on fire, especially where the bright red line ran straight through her heart.

  It must have been her panting that gave her away. ‘Freak?’ Car’s voice was an explosion through the dusk. ‘Oh my God, is that really you?’

  Úna flicked her eyes around. They were completely alone.

  For as long as she could remember, she had hated the ‘f ’ word – had yearned for Car and his gang to call her by her real name. This evening, though, she realised that maybe it was better after all. Because freaks could be boys or girls, which meant maybe freaks could decide for themselves.

  ‘Is it a new ritual?’ Car continued. ‘The Baldy Butchers?’ He sniggered, pleased with his alliteration, his shoulders shaking, which made the chains above him jangle like coins. But Úna knew that he had it wrong – that, apparently, the Butchers didn’t even exist any more.

  A stitch stabbed her side. She needed to sit.

  As she approached the other swing, she heard the chains go still. She could sense Car’s eyes tracking her every move. It felt good to take the weight off her blackened feet; to focus on steadying her breath. She shifted the scissors in her pocket so they didn’t jut into her ribs. She noticed the smell. ‘Can I have a bite?’

  Car’s eyes now tracked their way down to the burger in his hand as if trying to remember how it had found its way there. Tentatively, he held it out. His teeth had left little scalloped ridges in the bun.

  The first mouthful was so much sweeter than Úna expected, like a spoonful of sugar had been sprinkled over the top of the patty. Her next bite had a bit more ketchup, a sting of pickle and a plastic flub of cheese. She wondered if she would be able to taste the madness straight away; if it would work its way down to her stomach or go directly to her head. When she had finished, she wiped her hands on her thighs.

  ‘Wow!’ This time Car’s laughter was a much kinder variety. ‘I was not expecting that.’

  Úna felt a wash of anxiety. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy you another one when—’

  ‘Don’t worry. Sure it was only an excuse to get me out of the gaff.’ It wasn’t just Car’s laughter that was different now, it was his voice – it sounded more normal; natural. Úna supposed, with none of his gang around to watch, there was no need to keep the bravado up. ‘I eat my dinner here most evenings – to avoid the old pair, like. Although it gets pretty boring. What about you, why are you here?’

  Úna heard the question and thought it also sounded pretty normal, natural, as if Car were genuinely interested in the reasons behind her impromptu arrival. But she also heard everything her father had just said.

  A very difficult decision …

  The Butchers have decided to disband.

  She didn’t even know where to start.

  ‘Did you cut it yourself?’

  She also didn’t know how to answer that.

  ‘It reminds me of Demi Moore,’ Car continued, ‘from the film Ghost. Have you seen it?’

  This time Úna managed a vague shake of her head.

  ‘Ah, no way? It’s an absolute belter!’ The chains gave music to Car’s delight. ‘You’ve heard about the famous scene at least? The one where they get fierce kinky with the clay?’

  Eventually, Úna forced herself to reply. She said that no, she hadn’t heard about the famous scene. In fact, she didn’t really know much about films because her family didn’t own a television. Car couldn’t believe it – what did she do with her days? She told him about listening to the radio and helping with the dinner; about already finishing their summer homework. She didn’t tell him about playing with the Lego men.

  It felt good to talk about normal things – to distract herself from her father and his words; to distract herself even from the fact that it was Car McGrath she was talking to. Car hadn’t started their summer homework. Truth be told, he was considering not going back to school at all. He said the teachers picked on him because his brother had been such a wee shit.

  ‘Can you believe the gossip, though?’ Here he brightened again. ‘It’s been confirmed – Feary and Donoghue are definitely riding.’

  Úna pictured her Civics teacher holding up portraits of politicians. ‘What, did someone catch them in the Art room getting fierce kinky with the clay?’

  This time Car’s laughter was an eruption. ‘Wow, Úna. You really are full of surprises tonight.’

  The sound of her name made her cheeks go warm.

  ‘And you are also kind of … cute when you blush.’ Car stumbled over the compliment. His voice sounded different again – less sure of itself, suddenly. ‘Although you do have a bit of ketchup on your mouth.’

  And then his hand reached out, crossing the gap between them and landing on her face. Úna froze. Car rubbed, very gently, his thumb against the corner of her lip. Úna hated it at first and then, just for a moment, she didn’t hate it as much. She thought that, actually, it felt sort of nice.

  But the moment didn’t last, because even if her body was frozen her mind had started to reel. This was Car McGrath, for goodness’ sake, it didn’t make any sense! She turned away, gripping the chain to steady herself. The spinning in her head made her think of the burger and the madness and if maybe it could get to work even quicker than she realised.

  ‘Hey, are you all right?’ Car slinked down from his swing and walked around to stand in front of hers.

  The Butchers have decided to disband.

  No, she wasn’t all right.

  The ones in his feet. I found them when I was doing his final bath.

  No, nothing made sense any more.

  ‘Úna, I was thinking …’

  She closed her eyes. Her brain was speeding so fast she wondered if it might burst out of her skull. She wondered, for a split second, if Demi Moore from Ghost was pretty.

  ‘Can we forget about before?’

  She felt Car’s hand again, cupping her chin and tilting her face up towards his.

  ‘Can we maybe start again?’

  But out of everything, that was the bit that made the least sense of all. Because could you really just click your greasy fingers and forget about the past? Just go from being enemies to friends? From a group of Butchers to any other group of men?

  Trust me, it has been a difficult de
cision …

  Could you just erase everything you’d spent your whole life believing in?

  ‘No.’

  Whether he had heard or not, still Car leaned in to kiss her. Úna could feel the weight of his body; could smell the salt on his breath. ‘Please stop.’

  It’s not safe …

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Car whispered.

  They can’t use us …

  ‘Don’t be shy.’

  Trust me …

  ‘I said get off me now!’

  By the time she had opened her eyes, Úna was standing behind Car and his hand was no longer touching her face. Instead, it was her arm that was wrapped around his body, her muscles strained taut with the grip, the control.

  ‘What the hell?’ Car’s neck twisted back to look at her. The sinews were the twirled chains of a swing. ‘I thought you wanted …’ His words were a breathless mix of confusion and hurt. ‘Most girls would …’ But then his breath stopped and his words turned to something else entirely. ‘What the fuck is that?’ It took Úna a moment to recognise it as fear.

  She followed his eyes to where her other arm was bent inwards, pressing the scissors up against his throat. She felt Car’s limbs start to shake. She thought of a roll of gaffer tape to hold his body in place.

  ‘I asked you to stop.’ When she spoke, she didn’t try to pitch her voice low like earlier. In contrast to Car’s quivering, she felt strangely calm. The only thing that moved were her fingers as she rotated the scissors a full turn away from Car then back to his neck. ‘I told you to leave me alone.’

  The metal of the blade caught the glimmer of a nearby streetlamp. The skin of Car’s throat stretched taut and white and ready. ‘Úna, please.’ His voice cracked in two.

  She rotated the scissors a second time.

  ‘Úna, I’m sorry.’ His eyes and nose started to leak.

  She did the third and final turn. She was ready.

  ‘Car!’

  The voice came from across the playground and the pair sprang apart in unison, though not before the edge of the blade had nicked the skin under Car’s jaw. Úna watched him touch his hand to the cut then stare at the blood on his finger as if, once again, trying to figure out how it had found its way there.

  ‘Oh my God,’ another voice was calling now, ‘is that cowgirl?’

  ‘Fuck me, I think it is.’

  ‘Yee haw!’

  Úna kept her gaze on Car. He wiped the red smear on his jeans and wiped his face with the crook of his arm. When he met her eyes one last time, there was an expression there she had never seen before.

  ‘All right … faggots?’ He flung the question over his shoulder, a brief stumble before he was pure bravado again. ‘Anybody hungry?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But isn’t that—’

  Yes, Úna wanted to say, I am suddenly famished.

  ‘Well, whatever about you pussies, I would murder a milkshake. Hurry up before the bloody place shuts.’ Car swaggered off past his friends, ignoring their bafflement and leading the way towards the village.

  Úna stood in the dirt and listened until their outrage had faded into the night. Once she was alone, she knew she should find a bush and use two fingers down her throat to make herself sick. Instead, her body didn’t move, too busy trying to make sense of what had just occurred; what she had just done or maybe even just achieved.

  Eventually she placed the scissors back into her pocket and checked the moon. It was very full. She checked her head, which was no longer racing. It was very still.

  Interlude

  New York, January 2018

  ‘When you first got famous, it was hard to believe it was really you.’ If she had grown a little hostile before, it seems Úna is all smiles again, now that they have established they know each other – or, more precisely, knew each other way back in a former life. ‘I read about your debut exhibition in Dublin. Then the one in London a few years later. You said in an interview you didn’t get on with your parents, but the dual nationality thing ended up serving you nicely, hey?’

  Despite having finally placed her, though, it is her sass that makes it difficult to reconcile. Úna? The same scrawny child who hovered awkwardly down the back of that County Cavan kitchen? Instead, when he looks at her now it is still her mother he sees – the brilliant stare; the lilting tone; the occasional delight in watching his discomfort squirm.

  Even after so long, Ronan can recall the calming effect Grá had on him that summer, especially towards the end of the project when he was using a fair bit, trying to stave off the worst of the depression. He can remember being so manic, so utterly desperate to get that perfect final shot, he didn’t allow himself to sleep for days.

  ‘And then I was over here visiting my cousin when I read they were doing a retrospective of your work. And thank God I came! Because otherwise I would never have known about it. The photograph, I mean. The Butcher.’

  For some reason, the effect of this is the opposite of calming. Ronan realises the irony – after his initial disappointment that the unknown picture hadn’t attracted any attention.

  Whereas Úna now is all attention. ‘I think it’s an incredible shot.’

  He looks at her, resisting.

  ‘No, I mean it. Staggering.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘A proper masterpiece, like. Which then begs the question, of course, why you never displayed it to the public until now?’

  The waitress produces the bill on a silver platter; a couple of complimentary mints. Ronan is tempted to grab one and shove it in his gob, to render it out of action. Then again, when it comes to photography, he can always manage a bullshit answer. ‘It just didn’t feel right, you know. Exploiting his tragedy. Taking advantage … Benefiting from the poor guy’s misfortune.’

  But Úna isn’t easily fooled. ‘Surely that tension’s sort of at the heart of the profession? I’ve heard war photographers talk about it – whether to just document or intervene. And really, what do you have to feel bad about – you only took the bloody thing, am I right?’ The final question isn’t really a question and yet, because of what comes next, it seems to linger between them. Úna yanks a band from her wrist, flicks out her hair and scrapes it violently from her neck. She ties it up, twisting once, twice, three times, until it forms a tail at the back of her skull. She looks more masculine this way, somehow; more beautiful.

  ‘It was a tragedy, though, you’re right.’ When she sighs, she also looks more innocent – he would recognise her a mile off. ‘I mean, Sol’s passing. Poor Aoife – his wife – when she discovered how he was found, she never really recovered. The total debasement, you know?’ She licks her finger and presses it to a spare crumb on the table; raises the pie remains to her lips. ‘Then all those rumours started doing the rounds – saying it was the Butchers who had hooked his body up; that it was one of their rituals – have you ever heard anything so absurd? But people honestly believed it. Or at least, believed it enough to stop inviting the Butchers to their homes. After hundreds of years – just turned their fucking backs.’

  By now, the knot in Ronan’s stomach has begun to turn. He glances away and finds the waitress on the side. She is scrolling through her phone, clicking little hearts beneath little images of lives far more beautiful than this. And suddenly Ronan is reminded of one more image. He almost laughs – how did he not think of it before? It was the very last time he saw her, out in her back garden one May Day afternoon. Her hair was wild and her green eyes were wilder as she flung frozen meat from her family’s shed, roaring like some feral animal.

  He smiles as he realises, two decades too late – that was the magic shot he needed all along – the one that would have pulled his whole collection together.

  Ronan reaches deep into his pocket, folds the dollars and drops them on the silver plate. ‘Come on,’ he says, standing up. ‘There’s something I need to show you.’ With one hand he grabs the mints and
with the other hand he grabs hers, expecting the skin to be smooth. Instead it is tough, calloused hard like leather.

  Grá

  County Cavan, August 1996

  For the entire journey, she kept returning to that same awful phrase.

  Death rattle.

  She wondered if there was an equivalent for birth. And if so, which one of them hurt the most.

  The bus shuddered something violent, the suspension and the chassis barely clinging on, the windows threatening to shatter and let the silage stench come suffocating in. The fact that the service only ran twice a day suddenly didn’t seem such a farce – it was all the vehicle could do to hold its bones together.

  Grá held her daughter’s hand so tightly. She thought of it again.

  Birth rattle.

  She tried very hard not to shut her eyes.

  The driver did the best he could, shunting the gears and swerving the potholes; braking just in time to avoid the downy thump of death-wish hares darting across the road. More than once, they passed a victim who hadn’t quite timed its escape. A tongue flopped out pink. An intestine spilled purple like a rope.

  Grá glanced at Úna, the scrags of hair lopped unevenly round her face. She had almost offered to tidy it up; almost suggested a hat. Instead, she had assured her daughter she was as beautiful as ever.

  She had overheard her husband doing the very same.

  And she had told her daughter that the trip to town was on account of her imminent birthday. Unlucky thirteen – a teenager at last! But of course, the journey was so much more than that – an apology and a peace offering and a desperate attempt to compensate for the heartache of last week.

  I am putting myself forward as a replacement Butcher.

  I have decided I don’t need to be a girl any more.

  Grá clutched the fingers tighter than ever.

  As it happened, in the last few days, Úna seemed almost back to her unusual self – all smiles and games and questions plucked out of thick air. But Grá knew better than to believe in what the outside showed. Hadn’t she spent an entire lifetime appearing happy? Appearing, all things considered, content?