The Butchers

by Ruth Gilligan

  Anyway, I’d love to hear all about you so I hope you’ll reply when you get the chance.

  Yours sincerely,

  Your first cousin,

  Davey McCready

  After she had read them three times over, Úna knew all the words by heart. Her favourites were first and ancient myths. She also liked Promised and half-bull. What she didn’t like was the final paragraph with its barrage of question marks. She thought again of a pneumatic drill. She had noticed before how some adults asked what you wanted to do when you grew up and others asked what you wanted to be. Úna wondered if the two questions meant the same thing and if so, did that make it easier or harder to find an answer? Especially when you were suddenly having to start again from scratch?

  ‘So you’ve finally found yourself a wee friend?’ Her mother’s earrings today were a pair of red swirls Úna couldn’t remember seeing before.

  She waited until she had her logic straight, then made her own enquiries: ‘You didn’t tell me your sister died?’

  Her mam let her smile go slack. ‘The death notice was in the paper a couple of weeks ago.’ She also anticipated what would follow. ‘I know you would have come with me to the funeral, but I needed … I decided I would go alone.’

  In the silence, Úna was aware she was supposed to say ‘sorry for your troubles’ next, even if ‘sorry’ made it sound like she had done something wrong. Then again, it did feel strange that her mam had lost someone so important while she, apparently, was gaining someone new.

  ‘I spoke to Davey at the reception afterwards – he seemed a lovely lad. Another only child, as it happens, so he was very interested when I told him about you.’

  As Úna listened, she tried to match her mam’s enthusiasm. She knew she should be ‘very interested’ too. Because this was her very first bit of post; this was her very first cousin.

  I’d love to hear all about you.

  The problem was that, increasingly, Úna had realised she didn’t have a clue all about herself – who she was; what she wanted to do or be. She had discovered that holding a blade to a boy’s neck could get you the things you wanted, but she didn’t know what, for her, those things might be any more. Because everything had changed – everything that had defined her had vanished – or, technically, had been ‘disbanded’. In fact, ever since the Butchers had ‘called it a day’, she couldn’t even figure out what she should be called. In the past, there had always been special and believer. There had even, for a brief moment, been replacement Butcher. There had been freak and cowgirl, but now none of those fit and she was just as blank as a bare bedroom wall.

  Úna looked up at her mam’s green eyes. Her pink cheeks had grown a little softer, no more bones jutting through the skin. Úna supposed she had started calling herself something new – a florist – so maybe Úna should try and do the same? Or she could be a photographer like Ronan or a journalist like Mrs P before she became a wife who baked endless cakes or a widow called Aoife who polished dead men’s boots?

  I’m Scary.

  I’m Sporty.

  I decided I would go alone.

  Úna folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. She turned it over and stared at the words on the front. She wanted to reach for the scissors and cut out her name; to stare through the gap and out the other side.

  ___________

  By the end of the week, there were far more than just letters arriving to the house. Úna was down in the kitchen setting seven knives and forks; folding seven napkins the fancy way. Her father had turned fifty so now the Butchers – the former Butchers – were travelling from all across the country to join him for Sunday lunch. It would be the first time the group had been together since the end. Úna suspected their feet were long past itchy. The age sounded impossibly old – half a century! – but when her father entered the kitchen he looked the same as ever. He wore a new chequered shirt. Last night, her mother had trimmed the back of his neck while Úna swallowed down a surprising pang of jealousy.

  Now her mother was sweating into the oven, trying to manage the various bits of meat that were roasting there. There was a random assortment – a special menu made up of the very last of the freezer’s stash. It felt strange to see her mam back wearing an apron – more and more recently it had been her father’s job. Úna supposed that, just for today, he could be called a Butcher again.

  She had felt guilty this morning without so much as a card to give him. Her mam had promised to pick one up for her in town, then forgot. Úna used to make them herself in Art class, but that felt a bit childish now. She supposed she could have just written him a letter.

  She filled the jug from the tap. She hadn’t replied to her cousin yet. Not for the first time today, she felt a growling in her stomach. She wondered if she was coming down with something (another animal disease? Another plague?) or if something was coming over her. She thought of her aunt. Her mam hadn’t actually said how she had died.

  The doorbell rang to announce the first arrival, which was the Butcher they called Wyn. He was wind-faced and portly. ‘Úna, I’d barely recognise you!’ She did her best to force a smile she didn’t feel. Next to arrive were Mik and Farley, followed by the blondie lad named Con. He was the youngest of the group. Úna wondered if his name was short for anything or just a trick.

  He was also one of the lads who had been sent back to the borderlands last month to try to discover the details of Sol’s death. When they had returned, their findings had been whispered to Úna’s mam who was then tasked with delivering the news. Úna had accompanied her to Mrs P’s, but had waited in a separate room, which meant she didn’t see the look in the widow’s eyes when she first pictured her husband’s body hanging upside down from a hook. She only heard the howl through the wall – the throaty, animal sound – and the sobs that followed after as if she were coughing an entire lake up from her lungs.

  On the walk home, Úna had dared to ask her mam. ‘I thought you said some answers would finally bring her peace?’

  ‘I did … Oh, love, I was so naïve.’ Her mam’s face looked as pale and drawn as the olden days. ‘Instead Aoife says her grief has only doubled.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because now she has to mourn the loss of Sol’s dignity as well.’

  Úna pictured a second wicker coffin being lowered slowly into the dirt.

  They hadn’t seen Mrs P much since that awful day – her mam’s new job left no free time for organising visits – so Úna was glad when the widow showed up at the house this afternoon. Then she saw the ache in the widow’s eyes and she wasn’t glad at all. She took the plastic bag from her and peeked inside. The shop-bought Victoria sponge was cracked down the middle, great jagged lines that would surely never heal.

  By the time all seven men were in, the house felt crammed to bursting. Úna’s mam had stuffed bunches of flowers everywhere. She didn’t say if they were free or if Helen would dock them from her wages. Úna glanced out at the garden, which was scraggier than ever – her mam was just too busy these days to take proper care. Úna supposed a gardener was another thing she could do or be.

  They served the lunch, then left the men to it and retired to the sitting room. Luckily, a new distraction had been put in place to diffuse the awkwardness. Úna’s mam had purchased the television for her husband’s birthday; had shown him how to plug it in and use the remote control. This time he had been the one to force a smile he clearly didn’t feel.

  So now they all focused on the screen where a man in a pinstripe suit had just appeared. Úna remembered the portrait from Civics class. ‘Eoin Goldsmith,’ she said. ‘That’s him – that’s the Bull.’ He was being led out of a car by a Garda while all around him lights flashed and cameras strobed. Sometimes the glare caught a glint of metal from the handcuffs that poked from underneath his sleeves.

  ‘It is.’ When Mrs P spoke, Úna realised they were the first words she had uttered since her arrival. ‘He’s been arrested for all sorts – scamming con
tracts, dodging taxes. They also think it might have been him making and selling the MBM that caused the Irish cows to get sick. Thanks to him, a lot of men have lost their livelihoods.’

  When the camera panned out, Úna saw there were indeed a lot of men, only these ones weren’t in suits they were in fleece jackets and caps. They were penned in behind metal barriers, shouting their faces off and carrying homemade signs:

  BSE BULL!

  JUSTICE 4 FARMERS!

  GOLDSMITH ONLY CARES 4 GOLD!

  As Úna watched the chaos brewing, the photographers clambering over one another to get the best version of the very same shot, she thought about men losing their livelihoods and their dignity; about people losing their faith and their identity. She wondered if there was a special place these things went when they were lost and if they could ever be found again. She felt her stomach give another flutter. Maybe her butterflies had come crawling back after all.

  ‘I need water.’ She had only made it as far as the door when she heard the two women gasp. She assumed it was something shocking on the tele – a man climbing over the barrier; a violent fist slamming into Goldsmith’s chiselled jaw. But when she turned, the women had abandoned the TV to stare at the stain on the couch. Next they stared towards Úna’s trousers, so she contorted her body until she could see the damp proof for herself.

  She thought of the spill on her bedroom floor from her very first mouse.

  She thought of a rusty hook piercing an old man’s frail foot.

  She thought of a red line trickling down Car McGrath’s neck.

  She ran up the stairs and straight into the bathroom where she sat on the toilet lid. She clutched her head in her hands so she didn’t see her mother appear; didn’t see anything except the floor and her trousers peeled gently away; the white contraption produced from her mam’s bottom drawer.

  She heard a surge of laughter – men’s laughter – from the kitchen below. She knew she was definitely going to be sick.

  ‘Love, can you hear me?’ After a while, she heard her mother trying to talk to her, or at least, to this creature she had apparently become.

  Her mother offered her a bath.

  Her mother offered her the lake.

  Her mother offered her an explanation she didn’t recognise. ‘This is it, love, you’re a woman now.’

  I’m Scary.

  I’m Sporty.

  I’m a woman now.

  But just when Úna was about to scream, her mother placed eight fingers on her skin and offered two final things. The first sounded like this: ‘They forget we know more about death precisely because we can give life.’ This time, Úna didn’t need to ask who she meant by ‘they’. And then her mother offered the second thing – the one Úna liked the most; the one that made her stomach, just for a minute, settle down: ‘I tell you, love, we know more about blood than they ever will.’

  ___________

  When she finally descended, the cushion had been flipped around. Mrs P whispered ‘congratulations’, the tiniest glimmer back in her eye. But then she stood up and said it was time to go and her eyes were agony once more. ‘They are sacred things.’ As she walked away, her voice was croaked. ‘Our bodies, I mean. I just …’ She shook her head. ‘I cannot understand how someone could possibly think otherwise.’

  Watching her shuffle into the hallway, her whole being cowered, Úna thought again of the small scissors or better yet the large serrated chopping knife. She vowed that if she ever discovered who had done those things to Sol – who had caused this gorgeous woman so much pain – she would hurt them every possible way she could.

  The farmer was standing out on the front doorstep as if he had been waiting there all along. In his hand was a rope and on the end of the rope was a black-and-white cow. Úna noticed her udders were swollen as huge as a head. She noticed, when he spoke, the man’s accent wasn’t local. ‘I’m looking for the Butchers.’

  Her mam stepped forward and smiled the way Úna suspected she did for her customers. ‘Just a moment,’ she said, ‘I’ll go and fetch my husband.’

  Hovering in the doorway, Úna noticed a smell, a faint must, though she couldn’t decide whether it belonged to the heifer or to her.

  When her father arrived, his cheeks were blotched pink from the heat and the wine and the bitter-sweetness of reunion. The farmer hadn’t said another word. ‘I’m looking for the Butchers,’ he repeated. The cow exhaled loudly through her nose.

  ‘Mr Larkin, isn’t it?’ Her father wiped his hand and held it out. ‘Lovely to see you, sir – it’s been a while. But you mustn’t have heard, we – the Butchers, I mean – I’m afraid we have been forced to … retire.’ Here he paused. The reality still hadn’t got any easier to admit, no matter what words he used. ‘It was no longer safe. And what with the new legislation on animal tracing, it makes it impossible—’

  ‘My wife is after giving birth.’

  If her father hesitated, it was only for a second. ‘Congratulations!’ His smile matched his own wife’s perfectly. ‘But we still can’t help, I’m very sorry. There aren’t even eight of—’

  ‘I want my daughter to be a believer too.’

  Úna thought she saw her father’s eyes flicker in her direction. Her mother had missed a patch of hair on the back of his neck. There was no sound except the heifer swishing her dressing-gown tail.

  Soon enough, the silence bred more men – first Wyn, followed by Farley and Con – until the whole doorway was stuffed to the brink. Úna’s mam led her and Mrs P back through to the sitting room where the tele was showing the very same clip of the Bull being dragged in his handcuffs from a car. Or maybe, Úna wondered, the footage was actually live and he was just being made to re-walk that gauntlet endlessly – a fitting punishment set by a canny judge. Because that way the farmers could shout at him and spit their anger over and over; could make sure he never forgot all the heartache his greed had caused.

  Úna assumed the scene was somewhere down in Dublin, which made her think again of her cousin. She promised she would finally reply to his letter tonight; would finally admit she used to know all about herself, but that she didn’t any more. She would also admit she hadn’t heard the myth about the Minotaur – could he explain it? – but that she did have a favourite myth of her own. It was called ‘The Curse of the Farmer’s Widow’ and even though it wasn’t very famous, it was probably just as ancient as his. It was about a woman who lost her husband and seven sons in a war, so she placed a curse that said no man was allowed to slaughter cattle alone. Instead, seven others had to be there to preserve the memory of her grief, otherwise it would come back and poison the land. So for hundreds of years the people of Ireland heeded her words and made sure to follow the proper protocol when killing their beasts. Then a group of men travelled around to do the killing for them; to make it easier to keep the old ways alive. But eventually they gave up and, sure enough, the land turned diseased and all the animals started going mad. Then the people started going mad too – some tried to blame it on England; some tried to blame it on the animals’ food. And some tried to escape to America, but America wouldn’t let them in for fear the madness was infectious, so apart from the wealthy beef barons who managed to smuggle themselves out, they all began to die and soon the country turned rotten until eventually it wasn’t even a country any more, just a shrivelled sod of earth that used to appear in some silly old stories, but even the stories became infectious so people stopped telling them too until no trace of it remained.

  When she walked out to the hallway, the chattering fell quiet.

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  All the eyes were aimed in her direction. In the silence she could feel it – the same feeling that had come over her in the playground with Car McGrath. And she knew she finally had the answer to her cousin’s request.

  Tell me all about yourself …

  My name is Úna and I am a Butcher.

  ‘Úna, we’ve talked—’

  ‘The myth only
says no man can slaughter alone.’ She threw a half-glance over her shoulder. ‘It doesn’t say anything about women.’ She saw Mrs P, whose husband had been mutilated and who would never be told why or by whom. She saw her mam who gave the tiniest nod.

  They forget we know more about death precisely because we can give life.

  Úna stepped past the bodies into the night. ‘Why don’t you lads make Mr Larkin a cup of tea while he’s waiting?’ She took the rope from the farmer’s hand. ‘We won’t be long.’

  The cow looked at her and followed at once.

  We know more about blood than they ever will.

  Fionn

  Dublin, December 1996

  All around him, the reek of the place was a totally different reek to that of O’Connell’s – more alkaline than acid, if he had to say, though it was no less unpleasant. Beneath him, the envelope was tucked snug in the right arse of his jeans. Fionn thought of a hen squatting warm on an egg.

  He almost laughed, already gone on the farce of him being sat here on some wonky stool in some unfamiliar corner of some unfamiliar Dublin pub. On the walls and around the windows, there was a general smattering of festive tat. He noticed the decorations were more of the Santa than the saintly variety. He had also noticed the lack of television. He glanced from the clock to the door and back. He had nursed a pint of Coke and sucked the lemon to the rind. He still couldn’t get over the price.

  He was wearing a shirt even though he had only packed three to last him the entire trip. He had combed his hair then got annoyed, scuffed it up, then combed it back again. On the table to his right, two lads were chatting about cricket or some other West Brit sport. Fionn had a hankering for a bag of crisps. He clinked his ice around his empty glass.

  He checked the clock and the door again, but still there was nothing – no sign and no saints and no television screen. Fionn sighed. There was no trace of his only son.