Meat

Seven

‘Let’s play the dark game,’ Hema said.

They were alone in the bedroom. Their mother had a visitor and didn’t want to be disturbed. The girls didn’t mind; they never got tired of each other.

‘No,’ said Harsha. ‘It doesn’t work any more. Let’s make a new game.’

They knelt in front of a shabby chest and opened the lid.

The toys in the toy box were old and battered, as was the box itself. It contained the playthings of children that had long since departed the world. The box was just big enough for one of the twins to fit into if they took out all the toys, but they were growing fast and the ‘dark game’ was one they played rarely now. For years, they’d taken it in turns to shut each other inside the box and sit on it, competing to see who could stay in there the longest. The stints of sitting alone on the lid or inside with the hard-sided darkness grew longer and longer until there wasn’t enough time to both take a turn in one session. Their natural development had been the thing to make the game less of a challenge. It wasn’t the same when your shoulder was pushing open the lid and letting the light in.

The box was wooden and handmade, probably by a well-meaning father with little skill. Each panel was covered, inside and out, with a layer of stapled-on curtain material. Inside, where items had been pulled out and put back in a thousand times, the faded drapery had torn and through it showed the plain pine boards that formed the floor and walls of the box. Some of them bore tiny holes where woodworms had tunnelled. The curtain material was silky with age and sometimes the girls spent a few minutes trying to stroke the wounds in the fabric closed for the comfort it brought to their fingertips.

The lid of the box was curtain-covered too, but the top side was cushioned with an ancient piece of quilting. The material that covered the padding, although worn, had never ripped. The maker of the box had been far-sighted enough to use a triple layer of old curtain there. Three brass hinges that still looked new secured the lid but the hinges were loose and, though their father had promised to tighten them, he was always too tired to remember. The box wasn’t without its traps. It demanded an occasional sacrifice in the form of a cut from a rusty staple and it would, at times, impart a splinter to a careless hand.

The box smelled of things from a past they had never seen or known. Both Hema and Harsha associated the smell with play and risk and fantasy. Opening the toy box allowed it to breathe and when its sigh came out, the girls entered their magical world; a world that was never the same twice. There was an old wooden train set with pegs on its carriages where carved, painted soldiers stood to attention. A miniature dinner set. Nine silver thimbles they could use as dainty goblets. There was an old teddy bear with stitches where its eyes had been and more baldness than fur. A draughts board with missing pieces. A tin spinning top, its paint all worn away. There were old silk scarves of many colours, a Trilby hat and a Bowler. Deeply suffused in their leather bands, the hats bore the thick smell of trapped, greasy scalps; of strangers the twins only imagined. Dolls, dice, darts. A strange cube of black plastic with nine squares to each side and squeaky, twisting facets. Marbles rolled around at the bottom of the box.

‘I know a game we could play,’ said Harsha, picking out a plastic female doll with long blond hair. The doll wore a pink, red and white outfit: red beret, striped pink and white blouse. A red mini skirt and red high heels. She had a red plastic belt and a red plastic handbag. Harsha looked at her sister and they shared a moment of silent communication.

‘We’ll need Mama’s scissors,’ said Hema.

‘You’ll have to be very quiet.’

‘She won’t hear,’ said Hema. ‘She’s too busy.’

She jumped to her feet in excitement and tiptoed to the door. Downstairs, all was quiet. She slipped along the hallway to the bathroom and took the nail scissors from the mug they shared with two emery boards and other implements for finger-and toenail grooming. The scissors had curved blades but she was fairly sure they’d work. Keeping to the threadbare carpet, she approached their bedroom.

From downstairs she heard a noise; a chair moving, a cupboard being shut, something banging onto a counter? She couldn’t be sure.

She stopped moving and listened hard. The silence was alive; like someone downstairs was listening for her, not the other way around.

Then other sounds came, too indistinct for her to hear properly. The chair again? A voice whispering? She didn’t wait to find out. Even more carefully she crept the last few steps to the door, dodged inside and closed it tight and quiet behind her. She held the scissors up with a look of triumph and Harsha smiled back at her.

The game could begin.

They started by removing the doll’s clothes.

There was so much you could tell about the townsfolk that came to the lock-up; so much you could tell about people. You only had to look.

John Collins watched them all as they slipped through the doors of the lock-up, eyes furtive or assured, guilty or hopeful. What he saw affirmed his beliefs. People were animals of a kind, true, but they weren’t cattle. They were individuals and they possessed beauty and divinity by the very fact of their existence.

He had been giving his talks in the lock-up every week for months now and some of the visitors had begun to use his teachings for themselves. They were different from the newcomers. Yes, they were a little thinner but they weren’t starving by any means. They had the aura. Collins could see it. He wondered if anyone else could. His ability to sense light had increased ever since he’d changed his ways. He saw disciples of only nine or ten weeks as having a full-body halo of soft light, a kind of luminous mist that surrounded them at all times. No one else seemed to notice. Certainly not the newcomers. Perhaps the owners of the auras didn’t even know they had them. It was a sign that what he was doing was right. Everything he did made him more certain of it.

One October night a different kind of seeker came through the lock-up doors. Collins knew immediately there was something unusual about him. The man was pale-skinned; almost a yellow tint to his face, and his hair was black, thick and curly. It came to his shoulders. He had a beard that was even coarser and darker but it couldn’t hide the gauntness of the man’s face. Nor could it shield the gentle calmness coming from the man’s brown eyes. He wore an overcoat pulled up at the collars. It was a good quality garment – an unusual sight in any quarter of Abyrne – and Collins had guessed much, if not all, about the man before he’d taken a seat cross-legged on the concrete floor.

A profusion of hair was a fashion among the workers at MMP, whether dairymen, stockmen, herders or slaughtermen. Long hair set them apart from the smooth-skinned Chosen. A coat of such expense could only belong to a thief or someone who could afford it. Meat processors or employees of the Magnus household were the only people in the town with that kind of money. But the bony features, the suggestion of lean muscles and rope-like sinews beneath the coat were at odds with that. People that worked in Magnus’s factories were well fed. They were fat on high quality meat. The same went for the men and women directly employed by Magnus: the servants and maids, and his small army of guards and enforcers. This man might have been powerful enough to be an enforcer. His eyes were haunted enough, but they were far too kind.

When the talk was over and Collins had told them all to leave for their own safety, the man with the gaunt face hidden by his mass of beard lingered behind. Two of Collins’s longer-standing disciples, Staithe and Vigors, picked as guards because of their size, tried to send him home with firm words. He refused to leave. The doormen looked to Collins for guidance; they weren’t in the habit of using force.

‘He’s fine. Let him stay a little longer. Make sure the rest of them have gone home and keep an eye out for anyone we can’t trust.’

They left the lock-up and pushed the door shut behind them.

Collins, shaved bald, his neck well muffled, and the hirsute stranger in his heavy coat were left alone. Collins smiled to put him at his ease but for a few moments more the man said nothing. It was as though he was embarrassed.

‘Forgive me,’ he began finally. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you…’

‘It’s a lot to take in,’ Collins said. ‘For anyone. Especially true for you, I would imagine.’

The man took a step towards the door and then stopped.

‘Do you know me?’ he asked.

‘No. Not really. But I think I’ve seen you. You run, don’t you?’

The man nodded once.

‘You look very… fit. A little thin perhaps.’

The whites of the stranger’s eyes flashed and were serene again.

‘I’m so sick of hearing the word ‘thin’,’ he said. ‘Can you really help me? I’ve done all I can on my own. Now the Welfare is involved and I don’t know what’s going to happen.’

Collins rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.

‘I can help you but I can’t stop the town’s wheels from turning. If they’re onto you, you have little choice but to do what they want you to do. You have family?’

‘A wife. Two children. It’s… difficult… at home right now.’

‘I see. May I ask you what it is you do for a living?’

The man winced at the question and lowered his head.

‘I could never say it. Not to you, of all people. Not here in this place.’

‘Look, it’s alright. I think I know what you do. Because of that, because you want to be different, you’re more welcome here than most. Someone like you… changing… well, that would be—’

‘I’ve already changed, Mr. Collins. I’m not the same person I was. You have… no… idea.’

Collins nodded, his eyes closed.

‘You may think not but I couldn’t be doing this if I didn’t understand what people are going through. One has to have understanding first. I know you know what I’m talking about because you have that understanding. You’ve done your best to change and now you’ve come for the final piece that will help you to do it. I can help you. And I will. Do the exercises I’ve taught you and soon enough you’ll see.’

‘I don’t want rituals. No more religion.’

‘This is no religion. There is no dogma. There are no lies. Try it. If it doesn’t work you can forget we ever met.’

‘I don’t see how that will help me.’

‘No, of course not. So go and find out for yourself. If you need further guidance, come and attend again. I doubt you’ll need to, though. A man like you should take to it immediately. You’ll feel it. I know you will. And once I’ve helped you, perhaps you’ll come back and help me.’

‘Perhaps I’ll do that. If I’ve still got a family. If I’m still alive.’

John Collins put out his hand. The man hesitated and then put out his own. They shook and Collins felt rather than saw the incompleteness of grip from the man’s hand. He didn’t see it because he’d noticed the faintest glimmer of light in the gaunt man’s eyes.

The rising smoke and splattering of scalding fat caused mingled washes of hunger and revulsion. She turned the meat in the pan with heavy wooden tongs and pressed down on the slab of half-seared flesh to cook it faster. The force kept her hand still. No longer was it merely the pains in her stomach that caused Parson Mary Simonson concern.

Each morning she awoke to the nibbling in her stomach. That sensation of being devoured from the inside woke her throughout the night and acted as her alarm call come the dawn. Each new day was accompanied by nausea and dizziness the moment she swung her feet from the low, slim cot she slept in. It wasn’t the grip of some week-long sickness that was doing the rounds; this early morning vertigo had been with her for months.

Breakfast was getting harder and harder to eat, but, as a Parson, she was required to eat three meals a day and each of them had to contain the flesh of the Chosen. For Parsons the eating of the flesh of the Chosen was a sacrament. To ordinary townsfolk, meat was simply a way to avoid starvation. The thing she required to heal her stomach was tripe but she found it too much of a struggle to chew and swallow first thing in the morning. Instead she had taken to frying a small chop or grilling some thin smoked cuts and accompanying them with a glass of milk.

It was in doing the cooking that she first discovered the new problem. She was unable to hold a pan or spatula steady. If she brought every ounce of her will to bear on her betraying hands, it seemed to control the vibration to a minor tremor but stop it completely she could not. In a matter of days, the trembling had spread to other parts of her body and now, waking this morning bilious and unbalanced, the very room was shuddering.

It took a few seconds to work out that it was her head trembling and not her surroundings. This was a sickening turn for the worse. No one ever talked about it in the Welfare offices or the Central Cathedral but the Shakes was very common among the Parsons of the Welfare. She’d seen many of them take to their beds with it and never stand up again. The Grand Bishop of the Welfare sometimes mentioned the ‘burdens’ that Parsons were duty bound to carry and among them, she took that to mean the many illnesses that Parsons suffered from and the brevity of their careers. Few in the town lived past the age of fifty but for Parsons it was more like forty-five.

Parson Mary Simonson believed that it was the demands of the job that made Parsons prone to illness. Preaching the Book of Giving, short though it was, and maintaining moral standards among the townsfolk was increasingly difficult. There was more violence and aggression in the town every day, so the peacekeeping function of the Welfare became increasingly necessary. Every week now, she was compelled to use force to subdue townsfolk that had lost control and become unmanageable. In the past it had been possible to guide such offenders back into the fold. Nowadays, it was far more common that their status would be revoked and they would be driven out to the Magnus mansion before travelling on to the plant.

The Grand Bishop also mentioned, usually in the same speech as the one refering to ‘burdens’, that there were many blessings to weigh against the sufferings in a Parson’s life. This too was true.

A Parson never went hungry. Provision of the flesh of the Chosen was paid for by the town’s taxes. Parsons were noticed wherever they went and they had more power than any of the other townsfolk. They were more respected, for example, than the workers at the MMP plant and they were more educated. They had knowledge of medicine, law, faith – of course – and were imbued with divine powers. People feared them. It was good to be feared, for Abyrne was a dangerous place.

The fillet was cooked right through and burned dark brown on the outside. An accruing of fat on the inside of the pan ensured its charred crust was crisp with saltiness. She laid the still sizzling meat on a plate, said a brief prayer, and cut into it. It was, as always, highest quality produce hung for an appropriate number of days before being butchered for cuts. Most townsfolk got their meat in a hurry, causing the flavour to be less mature, but here again Parsons took the privilege and got the best. In the past she’d only ever eaten her meat rare but since her illness began the desire to cook it through, and then to char it, had increased. Now she ate hard, blackened meat. It was still a struggle, though.

As she forked a piece into her mouth, the knife in her right hand juddered against the plate. She laid the knife down and was glad of the silence. As she chewed, she considered her course of action regarding Richard Shanti.

He was a man with a spotless record of work for MMP. His reputation for speed and efficiency was rumoured far beyond the factory floor. Townsfolk often blessed him as they blessed their meat, though she doubted he was aware of the fact. Shanti was so quiet and withdrawn she didn’t believe he was aware of very much that went on outside his own head. She didn’t like people like that. Too self-contained, too independent. Townsfolk should be accessible and predictable. They should be trustworthy. Richard Shanti did not strike her as possessing any of those qualities. He was an unknown. Unknowns were a threat to everyone.

But if she investigated him and was wrong to do so, or if it turned out the records in the archive were incorrect in some way – it wouldn’t have been the first time – she could end up showing not only herself but also the whole of the Welfare in a very poor light. Did it matter that his name might not be Richard Shanti? He was an asset to the town. Did anyone need to know his true lineage?

She could easily drop the whole issue. She was sickening and the extra pressure would not help her. Did she need that? Was it really worth it or should she save her energy for maintaining high standards in her day-to-day labours? She couldn’t make up her mind. Perhaps there was a quiet way of doing it, merely spending more time checking records and staying away from Shanti’s family. They had two beautiful little girls with impeccable manners and just a hint of mischievousness. It would be a shame to shake up the family over speculations. No, she would wait. There was more she could do without mentioning anything to anyone. It just meant she would have to spend more time in the inch-thick dust of the records office. The idea almost appealed. She would be out of the way for a while, away from the harsh streets of Abyrne and its degenerating inhabitants.

Halfway through her steak a piece lodged deep in her throat – so far down it was almost in her stomach. She swallowed again, trying to produce saliva but the lump was fixed. She could breathe all right, there was no danger that she would choke, but this blockage was painful and seemed impossible to shift.

She reached for her glass of milk and brought the sweet liquid, its surface trembling, to her lips. She took a long, large gulp and waited for it to wash away the bolus of half-chewed meat. The milk slid easily down to the lump and stopped. It backed up into her mouth. She dived for the sink but didn’t reach it.

She would fulfil her religious duty and eat three meals of Chosen flesh that day, as always, but she wasn’t confident any of them would stay down.

Maya had no reason to feel guilty.

Getting a message to the factory had been the worst part. She’d felt bad about that for days. Well, for hours perhaps. Before and after she’d done it, at least. But what choice did she have? She’d asked herself the same question time upon time and ignored the answer just as often. None of it was a foregone conclusion. She wasn’t setting out for betrayal. She was responding to necessity. She was managing a difficult situation – one that her husband was refusing to address.

He’d brought home meat on the night of the Parson’s visit and it had been good meat. The best meat there was. There had been none since. Not the kilos he’d promised, not the backpack full of cuts and joints and chops and mince that they deserved, that he, as the man of the house, was duty-bound to provide. He’d weakened and reneged, become a victim of his pathetic obsessions once again.

What he’d said to the Parson had worried her too. He hadn’t properly answered her about it afterwards. She had no knowledge of his connection to the first families or of his alleged understanding of the old customs. Whatever he’d said to Parson Mary Simonson had done the trick temporarily, but what if she decided to take things further? Maya wasn’t going to let it go that far. She was a mother and she had duties she would not ignore, even if her husband ignored his. Dear Father, she thought, losing the children was what was at stake here; the end of their family and everything they had worked together to build. How could Richard care so little?

There was worse; if they were found to be wilfully negligent of the twins, and that seemed a provable point with the right evidence, they both stood to be tried and have their status as townsfolk revoked. There was no way back from a judgement like that.

So. No. There was no reason for guilt.

There was instead a reason to be happy, a reason to be hopeful about the future instead of terrified of it. On the counter in front of her, wrapped neatly in white paper, were packs of steak, links of sausage, and two huge joints that she could roast and then make soups and casseroles from. It was a large stack of parcels, mysterious gifts addressed to no one in particular.

They were all hers now.

She’d almost forgotten about the furtive, insistent movements behind her until her head banged gently on one of the cupboard doors. The movement stopped and she turned her head towards the stairs, listening. Was there a small footstep? She strained her ears into the early evening silence. There was nothing to hear. The movement began again. Soon she would cook the dinner.

Her mouth watered at the thought of it.

Whittaker, wisps of snowy hair sprouting from his ears and nose, looked very unhappy.

‘What is it this time?’

His voice was wheezy, air passing over tuneless strings. Rawlins sneezed three times in a row.

‘Same as before. Births. And deaths.’

‘Something a little more recent, I hope,’ said Whittaker, trying for a smile and missing. ‘It took days for the dust to settle after your last visit.’

The Parson appraised him for a few moments. Whittaker stroked a tuft of his moustache and attempted to maintain the smile that wasn’t quite on his face.

‘Tell me, Whittaker, did you eat well last night?’

‘Oh yes, very well indeed.’

‘Might I enquire what you had?’

‘Steak, Parson. The very best and tenderest steak.’

‘And how old are you?’

‘I’m fifty-one.’

She nodded slowly.

‘Fifty-one years old. That’s a rare age indeed.’

Believing he was being complimented, Whittaker’s smile burst out from its hiding place. Long teeth, the colour of ancient ivory, leaned drunken.

‘I put it to you, Whittaker, that were it not for your employment within the Welfare, you would have been dead long ago. I expect you to assist me in any way you can and be grateful that dust is the greatest of your torments. Otherwise, I may be persuaded that you are, in fact, too old to perform your duties here and I will recommend your immediate and unpaid dismissal.’

It was as though Whittaker and Rawlins had both woken from a deep slumber of many years’ duration and had begun to see their surroundings for the first time. She smiled to see them trying to find something useful to do.

‘Now, I shall be at the far end of the archives, the very dustiest part. Listen for my call, as I may need your help. Otherwise, be sure to send Rawlins down with a glass of milk from time to time.’

She went carefully, liking the dust no more than them. She lifted her hems and stepped over and onto the carpet of dead particles leaving the footprint of her heavy Welfare boots. Still the motes rose up in her passing and twisted like spirits in the air behind her.

It was the oldest records she wanted. Records from when the Welfare began. Records from the creation onwards. Most of the townsfolk believed the town had been created by God. A pure settlement commanded from the poisonous wasteland. Parson Mary Simonson was among them. As a Parson, it was her duty to instil in people the importance of the words in the Book of Giving and, though there were Parsons whose faith wasn’t always apparent, she took this gospel for truth.

‘In the beginning there was the promise and the promise was God. God filled the void with His presence. He commanded fire and fire arose in the void. From the fire He commanded the wasteland and the wasteland was so. But the wasteland was without life. From the wasteland God commanded the Town and he named it Abyrne. But the town was silent and empty and so God commanded the townsfolk that they might fill Abyrne with life and that they might dwell in the town forever. But the townsfolk hungered and their hunger filled God’s heart with great sorrow. He commanded the Chosen that the townsfolk might never be hungry again. He commanded the grain fields that the Chosen might always be fatted. And thus was the town and all that is in it created and ever shall it be so.’

Simple words for God’s simple townsfolk. She loved the words and knew the whole Book of Giving by heart. Even so, she still read from it as though the act of reading strengthened the message. Here in the office of records, she was accessing a time only a few generations before, when the first families of the townsfolk were brought into existence. They arrived with all their skills and tools and technology and began to live in the town in the way God required. They had the Book of Giving and they had their faith and that was all they needed. Very little had changed in the town since then.

She wanted to find the first Shantis and see what she could learn about them. Maybe there was a clue in previous generations to the enigma that was Richard Shanti. If not, she would search more recent records to see who else had been born around the same time. There was a good chance that Richard Shanti was who he said he was. Equally, he might be lying.

She was going to find out which, one way or another.