Mrs. Poole also rose. “I’ll get you some things from downstairs,” she said, and when Fancy frowned her misunderstanding, she went on: “Boots and an overall, dear. Gloves.”
Mr. McKendrick guided both of them out of the kitchen with a hand at their elbows, and Keiko and Malcolm sat in silence until they heard the front door open and close, then he took his hand away and rubbed his face slowly, the scrape of stubble against his palms sounding as though he was grinding sand into his skin. When Keiko couldn’t stand it any longer, she reached across and pulled his hands away.
“You said you didn’t know about Tash,” she said. “But you don’t seem shocked.”
“I think I’m just… I’m trying… I thought I understood him.” He paused, scanning the air above her head as though watching a slide show passing there.
“Tell me what you thought you understood,” Keiko said.
“I don’t know anything about it, not really,” said Malcolm, “but I don’t think anyone starts out bad.”
“Of course they don’t. Tell me.”
Malcolm heaved a great, shuddering sigh, deep enough almost to sound like a moan in the back of his throat.
“He’s younger than me,” he said. “Three years. And that’s a lot. Should have been a lot, anyway, except Murray was so quick, such a bright spark, I think they forgot he was just a baby. And when I was eight and he was five, something happened. It can’t explain tonight-no way it could even begin to-but it’s just what you said about the pig, you see.”
“What I said?” said Keiko.
“It used to be that a family butcher would do all their own pig-killing. That’s why there’s a slaughterhouse. Somebody would bring in a pig, and we’d see to it for them. Or if a farmer wanted beef for the family, we’d go out to the farm and kill the beast ourselves, bring it back here to dress it. That was before my time, really though. By the time Mum and Dad had us, it was all beginning to stop, but Dad decided we should see a pig-killing, just once before it was too late.”
“What happened?” said Keiko.
“Well, this old boy had a baconer he wanted done. It didn’t bother me too much. I mean, I wouldn’t get it out on video, you know. But it was interesting. Also me being me, I stood where Dad told me to stand, and Murray being Murray, he was right in there darting about getting in everybody’s way, so he was round at the front, in close, when Dad cut its throat.”
Malcolm remembered-had never been able to forget-the pig squealing and twisting and then the sudden silence and the still, hanging weight after the first cut, the split second before the blood gouted out of the neck wound.
“The old guy-Marsh, that was his name! Pete Marsh-he was at the other side, cutting out the gut. You cut round and grab it before it drops into the belly and then you keep a hold of it till you’ve opened the underside and strip the whole gut out at once. That’s the trickiest bit, to stop the guts spilling into the meat and spoiling it, but there’s no need for it all to be done so quickly. That’s the thing. There was no need for him to be at it already before Dad was finished at the throat. But I think it must be some kind of a… you know? To get the guts out, get the dirt away from the carcass before it’s hardly dead?”
He closed his eyes and saw again Murray shrieking, backing away from his father and the fountain of blood.
“And he got under Marsh’s feet and Marsh let go of the gut end, so then Murray tried to get out of the way of that and put his foot in the blood bucket. By this time he was squealing his head off, and it sounded exactly like the pig when they were lifting it.” Malcolm stopped for a couple of breaths, remembering, and then went on in a harder tone.
“All I could think about was getting Murray out of there and getting him cleaned up, and maybe if my father had left Marsh and the pig and taken Murray away in to Mum for a cuddle, he might have been okay. But Dad got angry. Mr. Marsh too. I think Dad was mad with himself for not having the sense to know that Murray was too young, but it was Murray he shouted at. Shaking him and shouting at him. And Marsh must have been angry with my father for letting his kids muck everything up-the carcass was completely ruined-and he was shouting too.
“So they’re both really giving it some and Murray’s screaming and skidding about, covered in blood and pig dirt and bile-it maybe sounds like nothing now, but-”
“It sounds horrific,” said Keiko. “Poor little boys, both of you.”
“I was all right,” said Malcolm. “I was eight, not five. I could have done something.”
“You mustn’t say that. You mustn’t think that way. It was up to your father to-”
“Well, anyway, Dad took him by the scruff and yanked him upstairs here, and then he starts shouting at Mum saying how she’s turned him into a sissy, and she starts yelling back about the mess traipsed up into the flat. It was the worst row they ever had, and I’m sure Mum must have been against letting us see the slaughter in the first place. That’s why she was so angry and how come Dad was shouting his head off at her. For being right, you know?”
Keiko nodded.
“They still weren’t speaking by the time we went to bed that night. We could hear my dad scrubbing away at the slaughterhouse and my mum trying to get the footprints off the hall carpet, so when Murray had a nightmare there was no way I was going to get either of them. I took care of him myself. Tried to anyway.”
“Just that first night?” said Keiko.
Malcolm shook his head. “That was my big mistake,” he said. “My parents never mentioned it again, not a word, as if it never happened. And so I never told them how bad it was at nighttime.”
“They never said sorry to Murray?” Keiko asked him.
“They never said anything. And anytime they had a wee row about something, Murray would run away and hide, shaking. And I never told them about that either. I just tried to take care of it. Every night, I tried. When he had the bad dreams I used to get into his bed and tell him stories. No animals, no fighting or shouting, or shooting or swords, nothing to do with eating or dying. Nothing with smells.” Malcolm gave a short laugh. “It doesn’t leave much,” he said.
“I used to tell him stories about Robotland. One about a robot who lived at a junk heap and used to fix up all the old beds and fridges and sell them to the other robots to save up his money and build a space rocket and fly away to the moon.”
“Ah,” Keiko said.
“And I know you’re going to tell me he must have been headed the wrong way all along,” Malcolm said. “You’re going to say one day couldn’t cause…”
“Of course it could,” Keiko said. “That one day and all the silence afterwards.”
“I know,” said Malcolm. “I should have told them.”
“I didn’t mean your silence,” Keiko said. “You were eight, Malcolm. You were a child.”
“I should have told them,” Malcolm said again. “But eventually, the nightmares tailed off. Probably he got used to telling himself his own stories, and when he got his first motorbike and started learning how to fix it up, they stopped altogether. He was too young to get a licence to ride it, and he used to get laughed at, but that didn’t bother him. He had the slaughterhouse and the bikes, and he seemed fine.
“Anyway, Dad was still determined he would come into the shop and start his apprenticeship, go to college one day a week-meat processing, hygiene, health and safety-same as I had done when I was sixteen. And as far as Mum and Dad were concerned there was no reason why not. I don’t suppose they had thought about that pig for years. And, funnily enough, Murray seemed okay about it too. I tried to bring it up with him one night in the summer when he’d just finished school. I thought if we both went to Mum and Dad together we’d persuade them that Murray could go his own way. But he said he had no problems with it. He had worked it out and he wanted to show me. He invited me in to see.