Meat

Twenty

They didn’t knock.

She heard footsteps, glimpsed dark figures passing the kitchen window and hadn’t even the time to be frightened when they walked through the back door. They entered as though into their own mother’s house and threw themselves down on kitchen or living room chairs. So nonchalant, she half believed they were meant to be there – friends of her husband and he would follow them in at any moment.

He didn’t.

One of the men, his hair long, black and greasy, couldn’t be still. He paced around the open plan ground floor picking things up, half inspecting them, putting them down. It was as though she didn’t exist. She found her voice and began to speak but the restless one held up his hand to silence her without even looking her way.

‘Where are the children?’ he asked.

It was easier now to stay silent than to talk. She didn’t answer.

The greasy-haired one gestured with his head to two of the others and they slipped upstairs.

‘No.’ She ran towards them, still holding a wet dishrag. ‘Wait. Please just tell me why you’re here. You’re not Welfare. What do you want?’

The leader grinned through bad teeth.

‘How do you know we’re not Welfare?’

‘You’re not… Parsons.’

‘We could be… undercover Parsons.’

The others laughed.

‘You can’t take them away. We’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Denials. Without an accusation even being made. I smell a guilty conscience.’

‘I swear to you, we’re good townsfolk. We live by the Book.’

‘Oh? And what book would that be?’

She could see how her confusion amused them. Why would they toy with her this way?

‘The Book of Giving, of course.’

‘Sounds a bit old-fashioned to me. Bit… dated. Sounds like the sort of book we could burn and no one would miss it.’

The two men descended the stairs, each carrying one of her daughters.

‘Ahh. Soon have the whole family together, won’t we?’

The girls and their bearers were smiling.

‘Please.’ She dropped the rag and took hold of the man’s hands. ‘Please don’t take them away. I told you, we do things right in this family.’

The man smiled in genuine amusement.

‘I’m sure you do, Mrs. Shanti.’ He removed his hands from hers. ‘But I’m really not interested in how piously you run your household. I’m merely here to extend you an invitation from my employer, Mr. Rory Magnus. He’s requested the pleasure of your company.’

‘But I… I mean we… this is something to do with Richard, isn’t it? What has he done? Tell me what he’s done.’

‘Mrs. Shanti, I don’t know what you mean. All I know is that you and your daughters and Mr. Shanti are all required to be the guests of Mr. Magnus.’

‘Required? I—’

‘He’s very particular about who he invites. I’d say you were all very honoured. Wouldn’t you, boys?’

There were nods all around the room.

Hema and Harsha could hardly contain their excitement.

‘We’re all going to go for a ride in the big black bus, Mummy. We’re going to see the biggest house in the town.’

Maya knew she had a choice about how she handled their captors. If she struggled, protested and begged it would frighten the girls. If she went meekly, calmly, at least they would be shielded for a little longer.

‘Well, in that case, I’d better put my best shoes on.’

Torrance tapped a pencil against a chipped mug in his office. Shanti watched his face for clues, for any sign of what the man was really thinking. There was nothing there but veils. What he said after his long silence was unexpected.

‘We have to reduce the herds.’

‘Reduce?’

‘It amounts to a cull, really. Management of numbers.’

‘But why? It’ll result in a reduced yield. More people going hungry.’

Torrance shook his head. He had the look of a teacher trying to explain something to a small child.

‘No one goes hungry because of a lack of meat, Rick.’

‘There isn’t enough to go around as it is… Bob.’

If the familiarity annoyed Torrance he showed no sign of it.

‘It’s true, that’s what people think. But that’s just what Magnus wants townsfolk to believe. It keeps the price high, funnels the town’s wealth in a very particular direction.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Torrance appeared to make some kind of mental decision.

‘Look, Rick, I like you. You’re a good man. A great asset to MMP. So I’m going to tell you something. But first you have to swear to me that nothing I say will be repeated. To anyone. Ever.’

‘I’m not sure I want to be party to that kind of information.’

‘It’s too late for thinking about what you want. We have to start thinking about our jobs and our futures. I’m going to need men like you to help me manage the changes. Men I know I can rely on to do their jobs properly.’

Torrance stood up to tell it. Shanti listened in pale shock. Hundreds of Chosen slaughtered for nothing. Flesh dumped by the ton on the borders of the wasteland. Townsfolk starving in the midst of a glut. And now this.

‘The thing is, with the power plant shut down indefinitely, there’s no way we can maintain previous yields. Cattle will age past their prime and be useless to anyone. Less money coming in will mean fewer jobs or, at the very least, pay cuts across the board. Everything will have to be done by hand, without power – at least until we can build up gas reserves again, but that could take years. The trucks won’t run, the chain motor won’t run, the milking machines won’t run. There’ll be no more automation. Not for a long time. Instead of slaughtering the steers, we have to start thinking about reducing the numbers of fertile cows and getting rid of most, if not all, of the bulls. That will halt the growth of the herds. We have to cull the milkers too. There’s just no way we can service them all. So, starting tomorrow, I want you to round up the oldest dairy cows and the oldest bulls. Bring them in for slaughter.’

Shanti waited. It didn’t seem as though Torrance was finished with him. Torrance sat back down and continued to flick the pencil against the cup.

‘Will there be anything else?’

Torrance looked up.

‘Isn’t that enough?’

Shanti shrugged.

‘I…’

But there was nothing else to say. He turned and left.

Behind him he could sense Torrance’s expression. Something like a smile.

He had the children taken straight to the maids to be looked after while he spoke to their mother.

They ushered her into the drawing room – a more fitting place to meet than his study – where he was lounging, still in dressing gown and slippers, and medicating himself with a large vodka. He dismissed Bruno and the boys and poured her a measure.

‘I don’t drink,’ she said as he passed her the chipped crystal tumbler.

He smiled.

‘You do now.’ He gestured towards one of the sofas. ‘Make yourself comfortable, Mrs. Shanti. May I call you Maya?’ He waited neither for her to sit nor reply but sat down once more in his own armchair and put his feet up. The silk dressing gown slipped a little revealing one lumpy, trunk-like thigh. He made no effort to cover himself up. ‘I suppose you know why you’re here?’ No reason not to start testing her straight away. They were all short of time.

He looked her over. Long, dark, straight hair, a nicely curved figure – only a little spoilt by childbirth. Better than most in the town. Her face was too angular though, the eyes too focussed. He got the sense of a woman who manipulated but without any real intelligence. There was an underlying tension there too, some kind of frustration rarely addressed.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything.’

Too much protestation already; her words proving his assessment.

‘But surely you can guess. Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Mr. Magnus, we’re a God-fearing family. We abide by the laws of the town. I have no idea why you’ve brought us here.’

Time to stop circling and pounce.

‘Your husband, Maya. Richard. We believe he’s not quite the man he purports to be. Has he been behaving strangely at home? Have you noticed… deviances?’

Her fingers tightened on the crystal tumbler just enough for the knuckles to whiten a shade. Her initially firm stare now skittered around the objects in the room. A little colour came to her cheeks before draining and leaving her pale. Excellent. There was dirt here somewhere.

‘He’s been… working very hard. Too hard.’

Magnus’s vodka hand started to shake. He rested it on his thigh, took the glass in his other hand and drank.

‘I don’t think he’s been quite as dedicated as you might believe. Tell me, have you ever known him to go anywhere else other than work? Does he have friends? Does he ever drink at Dino’s?’

‘Richard is not a drinking man. He’s not a gregarious sort, Mr. Magnus. As far as I know, he’s never done anything but come home after a day at work and collapse in exhaustion.’

Ah, so there it was. Shanti didn’t give out what a wife required, he was one of those rare, sexless automatons that did nothing but sleep and work. Great for MMP. Useless to his wife. Yes, Magnus could see the strain in her neck muscles, sensed the hunger in her crotch. She would want it hard and rough. She would welcome pain. How happy he would be to oblige.

When they’d concluded their business, of course. Not before.

Shanti visited the dairy and watched the dairymen struggling to milk the few cows they had in there by hand. It was obvious from the look of the cows that the process was more painful than the machines. Cows that had been milked had red udders with fingerprint-shaped bruises already appearing. He looked for WHITE-047 but she wasn’t there.

Behind the milking parlour, the rest of the dairy herd were corralled with their calves, allowed to nurse them to prevent their udders from over-distending. He spotted WHITE-047 at the back of the herd against the cracked brick wall. There was no way he could get to her without others in the herd noticing. A couple of stockmen patrolled lazily, waiting to send the next few cows into the dairy. The whole plant was on a go-slow.

Shanti put his hands in his overall pockets and put his head down as he walked towards the bull barn. It didn’t really matter if he was noticed but he wanted to feel anonymous nevertheless. In the barn there were no stockmen. All the pens were locked and secure and with more hands needed elsewhere, the bulls had been partially abandoned. He walked the rows until he saw BLUE-792’s familiar bulk through a gate slat. Using his fingertips and rasps that he’d practised thousands of times when alone, he beat the steel panel softly, breathed the secret language of the Chosen.

This time, when he’d finished, there was a long reply.

It was unusual to come home in the evening and find no light coming from the house. He was accustomed to seeing the glow of firelight and candles at the very least. Of course, with the power down, Maya would be making do with what they had and that would mean trying to stretch every stick of tallow and every fallen branch.

As he stepped past the kitchen he expected to see the flicker of a single wick burning but there was nothing. It was still too early for the girls to be in bed; too early even for dinner to have been served. Perhaps Maya was working out how to cook her filthy meat over flames of an open fire.

Stopping at the back door, he listened. No sound from inside.

Nothing.

Instead he noticed his own heartbeat and realised he was afraid.

He opened the door silently, knowing exactly how to twist the handle and pull the door towards the hinges to avoid any sound. Pushing the door wide allowed a little of the final light of dusk to show him the deserted kitchen and living room. He stood just inside the door for a long time listening for breathing, watching for the slightest movement. There was nothing.

When he was satisfied the downstairs was deserted he checked upstairs. The house was empty.

So. She’d taken them away, just as she’d promised she would.

He ground his teeth together as his anger rose up. That tainted woman assuming charge of his precious girls. She was the one who deserved slaughter. She was the one who should experience death at the hands of MMP stockmen.

In the gloom something almost glowed on the dining table. A white rectangle. A letter.

He reached for it but it was too dark to see any writing.

In the kitchen he fumbled for matches, lit a stick of tallow.

It was worse than he’d expected:

Mr. Rory Magnus kindly asks that you join your family at his mansion at your earliest convenience. Tardiness will not be well received.

His hands shook. Melted fat dripped onto the table.

His pupils constricted in the candle flame. There was a noise at the back door. The flame whipped out in a draught. He saw not faces, but shapes, figures, steal into the room with speed and purpose. He dropped the letter.

They took him.

The back door had been left open and she walked in without knocking or calling out. It was clear there was no one inside. The Shanti place was silent and still. The house seemed to be listening to her.

She found the note from Magnus and was too jaded to despair. What did it matter that Magnus got to Shanti before the Welfare? What did it matter that the town fell into the hands of a Meat Baron or even those of the insane John Collins?

Her indifference astonished her. All these years of piety and adherence, all these years of service. Where was God now that she was dying? Where was God when lunatics threatened to take over Abyrne? She listened. If God heard her questions, He made no answer.

Weakened, she sat at the table where they had eaten the night she’d inspected the house. The children had pushed their food around on their plates before eating. Shanti himself had not touched the food until she’d left the table. Only Maya ate with gusto. Had Shanti even touched his meat that night? Quite suddenly, she was certain he had not; that he had not eaten the flesh of the Chosen for some considerable time. He was thin, yes, but he looked far fitter and healthier than most in the town. Could that really be attributed to his bizarre running habits or was there more to it? According to the Book of Giving, no townsperson could survive without the nourishment of the Chosen. Now, such folk were abroad in the town in numbers. Collins and his acolytes. Shanti too probably. How could God explain this?

God did not explain.

When she thought about it, had God ever truly spoken to her? Had He ever answered a single prayer? Had He appeared in the form of signs or portents? Had He shown himself in the shapes of the clouds? Had His presence ever given her comfort on the decades of nights she’d spent alone and chaste?

Dear Father, surely this is not the time to doubt You. Not when I approach the threshold of the next world. Not when my soul is about to fly to You. Perhaps this was the Lord’s greatest test of her, the final examination of her faith. Perhaps everyone faced this test at the end.

She felt an emptiness within herself she had always expected to be filled by the divine light of the Lord’s spirit. She had saved this cold space for Him ever since she’d entered the Welfare as a novice. The hearth within was swept and clean, the wood lay ready in the grate, the chimney was clear.

Fill me up with Your flame, Lord, for I need no other nourishment now. I shall not eat again nor wake from my next sleep. I come to You. Place Your gentle fire within me.

Many hours passed in the kitchen and Parson Mary Simonson sat unmoving with her hands folded on the table in prayer. The light moved across the room indistinctly through the clouds but she sensed the day growing old and the approaching twilight. There was nothing inside her. Not the merest spark of the Lord’s presence.

Instead the foetal canker in her guts stirred as if turning in a womb. It unclenched, at least that was how it felt to her, and the points and blades of its body wounded her from within. She had swallowed a baby fashioned from splintered bone and broken glass and the baby was growing, trying to get out. Nausea accompanied the churning, expanding pain in her abdomen. The trembling returned to every part of her body and as she sat, she was unable to keep even her head from shaking side to side.

Was this, then, her answer? The absence of God?

Or was it worse than that? Was their town’s God a God of cruelty? A God whose mission was to inflict pain on His creations?

She could sit no longer. Before the darkness came she wanted to move on. There was one last place to search for answers. Then she would rest and gladly.

Since the blast at the gas plant, the roads had become very still. What little gas was left was being reserved for emergencies only. No trucks grumbled back and forth from the meat packing plant to the town.

But the wind still blew and out here, much nearer than she normally came to the fields of the Chosen and to the plant, the smell was very strong. So many odours combining on the cold air. She tried to isolate each one. Faeces was the most recognisable and it smelled no different to the stink that arose from the town’s sewers. Almost as strong was the smell of rot and decay, the smell that came off meat left too long to be edible, the smell of flesh breaking down. There were living smells too. Sweat from the Chosen; not unlike that she might smell from a group of workers on a hot day. With all this came the aroma of fresh blood and the thick odour of the butcher’s shop, of cleaved, hanging meat, of ground meat, of cutlets and chops, of steaks and raw sausage. These were the smells that had once caused her mouth to water; the smells of her daily dutiful intake.

Now those smells only added to her deep nausea.

Despite the weakness of her knees and the strain in her legs, she walked on. She pushed through the pain inside her as though through a high wind, leaning forwards slightly. Like a starving woman climbing a steep hill into a gale. She kept her head down. She did not imagine that there would be a return journey.

The road was broken, the hawthorn hedges bulging and jagged. From time to time a spike would catch her gowns and the jerk on the material would be enough to stop her. Resuming the walk was harder each time. Finally, realising that there was unlikely to be a passing truck, she stepped into the middle of the road to walk and only had to watch for ruts and cracks in the blacktop.

She reached the gates at dusk.

In the security man’s box there were three men, not one. Two of Magnus’s personal guards accompanied the gatekeeper.

She stopped at the window. The black-coated guards stood up behind the gate man. He slid the window open and stuck his head out.

‘Bit late for an inspection, isn’t it, Parson?’

‘These are dangerous times,’ she said. ‘Never too late to be vigilant. Can you arrange an escort for me?’

The Gate man shook his head.

‘We’re fully occupied, Parson. All hands we can spare are on the task.’ He flicked his eyes towards the guards standing behind him and tried to make himself sound grateful. ‘Magnus has sent a shift of extras to keep watch while we work but I can’t assign them to you.’

Parson Mary Simonson hadn’t wanted an escort; she’d merely asked out of politeness and to comply with protocol. Parsons were entitled to go anywhere they wanted, most especially around the MMP plant, but it had been a long time since they’d actually felt welcome to do so.

‘I’ll make my appraisal alone then.’

A cloud of weakness hit her and she went momentarily blind. She reached out a hand and it found the wall of the security man’s box. Slowly the fog lifted and the faint retreated.

‘You alright, Parson?’

She was surprised to see the security man looking genuinely concerned.

‘Fine. It’s… been a long shift, that’s all.’

‘I can get some food sent out to you – we can do that much.’

She wondered if she looked as pale as she felt at the thought of it.

‘That won’t be necessary, but thank you all the same.’

She walked around the closed gate and towards the nearest building. She could feel the eyes of Magnus’s men on her back but she was unafraid.