Fiction from The Literary Review

Meat

LAURA HIRD

I've just gone to bed when I hear them come staggering back from their quiz night at the local pub. This is the last thing I need.
     “I saw you, Ewan. All over her!”
     “Ocht, can we no leave the house without you going radge? Just once?”
     “You're no denying it then?”
     “Shuttup woman!”
     “You get a kick out of humiliating me don't you?”
     “What are you on about?”
     “That wee slapper in the black dress you couldnae take your eyes off. Slobbering over her like a dug in heat.”
     “Loady shite!”
     “'Can I join YOUR team? Mind if I join YOUR team?' She was lapping it up. Dirty wee hoor.”
     My father's responses become shorter and quieter until eventually my mother's grievances are a capella. It's always the same when she gets angry. Her voice takes on this unbearably shrill working-class tone that could shatter windows within a fifty-foot radius.
     “Go your fucking-self next week. I'm no going back after that. How would you like it if I threw myself at any man that came within a foot of me? You wantie start playing games like that? D'you? D'you? Think I've no had my chances, eh? D'you?”
     Her insults, as ever, are interspersed with the sounds of slapping and banging around. I know dad'll just be sitting there, taking it like he always does.
     Quite when my father is supposed to conduct all his supposed affairs is beyond me. When he's not at work the pair of them are never out of each other's pockets. Besides, he's a sap. That's probably why she loves him. One day he'll maybe snap and shag someone else but I doubt it.
     Eventually I hear her stumbling up the stairs and going into their bedroom. A few minutes later he follows her up and opens my door. He stands in the darkness, hiding, then tiptoes over and sits on the side of my bed.
     “I'm sorry son. Are you sleeping? You should'nae have to listen to that.”
     I simulate light snoring to save him his embarrassment.
     “Go and come fishing with me tomorrow, give me a wee break. You used to like it. We dinnae spend enough time together.”
     This is very true but I still don't move.
     “Duncan's boat's at Dysart. If we leave early we can dig some bait at Cramond and get across before the tide goes out.”
     Where the fuck is Dysart? My father doesn't half go to some wee-arsed places.
     “It's up to you, but. Give us a chance to have that wee talk you mentioned. I winnae let you down again, honest.”
     The fact is, he never lets me down deliberately. He needs the overtime, we all do. It's years since we've been fishing together and I can't even remember if I liked it or not. We really do need to talk but the thought of being stranded alone with him for hours makes me a bit edgy. He's standing beside the bed now. Either he knows I'm awake or he just wants to hide for a wee while longer. I can't pretend any more, I feel so sorry for him.
     “Aye dad, I'd like that.”
     As he ruffles the blanket over my head like I'm still a wee laddie I take advantage of his moment of paternal joy and ask him for a loan of a tenner. He gladly hands me a note from his pocket then goes off to his bed, smiling, partially rejuvenated. If only I could be as easily satisfied. Parents get so much out of the few crumbs of affection you throw them.
     That night I have a wet dream about mum. I come all over her face. She gets up to make us a packed lunch and cook breakfast at 7.15, the sleep having returned her to her normal, prudish, pseudo-middle-class self again, but I can't look at her and just grunt when she tries to talk to me. Maybe she'll think I've taken the huff about their fight last night. I hope she does as it might make her a bit easier on the poor old sod.
     We arrive at Cramond at 8.30. Dad makes me take my Walkman out with us as it's supposedly a bad place for cars being broken into. The tide's beginning to come in and the oily beach is leopard printed with pools of water. We walk from the dry, stony littery sandy grass onto the soft blackened beach which clutches at our feet as we progress. Jumbo jets roar past overhead as they drop into Turnhouse.
     A group of teenage boys swagger down the walkway from the island, swearing and sniggering and reeking of bad vibes. Dad puts his head down in the way people do to fruitlessly avoid being noticed and walks purposefully down the beach a few feet in front of me. As the teenagers approach, they try to get our attention. Dad continues walking, having switched off in the same way he does when mum throws one of her wobblies. The hostile noises get louder but they're still too far away for us to make out what they're saying. I feel scared and scan the deserted beach for allies in case of attack. There's only an old woman walking her dog up towards where we left the car. She doesn't look like she'll do us many favours in a fight. The tallest of the boys now stands parallel with Dad and waves.
     “Hoi, grandad. How'd ye get ti Barnton from here?”
     Dad remains impervious. I want to panel the guy for calling my father grandad but I'm way too feart.
     “Hoi grandad, hoi mate.”
     He looks around.
     “Barnton, grandad. What direction?”
     Dad gestures upwards non-commitally and the dirty-looking group continue past us and up the beach, the tallest one muttering loudly, “It fuckin' better be or we'll come back and chib yi, yi cunt.”
     I glance back a few times as we continue down the beach until I see them pass the car, leaving the windscreen intact, and disappear up the street. Dad stops in front of me, draws a circle in the sand with his garden fork and begins digging.
     “Here, get they twa big soosters in that bucket,” he says, pointing at the two of the biggest, most deformed-looking worms I've ever seen outside a fifties B-movie. I feel nauseated at first but once I actually pick them up and feel their sliminess in my hand it transports me back to being eight years old, cutting them into dozens of pieces in our garden and watching them slithering around like maggots just prior to putting them down the wee girl next door's dress.
     I begin filling the bucket with the fat-necked monsters as Dad spins about the beach drawing his circles and digging vigorously. My eyes take a while to adjust to the camouflage of their gritty bodies and dad has to keep prompting me to grab them before they take fright and disappear back into the sand. I watch the poor bugger dig-out about fifteen circles before volunteering to dig myself. The sweat is out on his forehead but he looks like he's enjoying himself.
     He points out that I should dig where the craters are and not over the piles of sand worms which I'd thought more likely to signal their location. The sand is wet and heavy and I'm panting whilst still digging out my first circle as it's hard to move before it escapes through the spaces in the fork. Since dad makes it look so simple though, I persevere, but I'm too embarrassed to ask how to do it properly. I can't find any of the fat wee bastards he's been unearthing and after three lackluster circles have only managed to collect two the size of earwigs and I'm completely knackered. Dad sees that I'm suffering, dips the bucket into a pool of water and chucks in some sand.
     “That'll do for now. The tide'll be out by the time we get over,” he says, nodding sentimentally in the general direction of his beloved Fife.
     As we drive onto the Forth Road Bridge I realise this'll be the first time I've been outside Edinburgh since I was ten. The guy I call uncle went through a brief stage of taking me to the stock-car racing in Newtongrange a couple of years ago but that doesn't really count because it's still sort of Edinburgh and I found it really boring. We haven't been on an actual holiday since my first and last visit to London in 1990. The IRA waited until we arrived, then bombed the City and blew up some Tory outside the Houses of Parliament all during our fortnight there. The police kept cordoning off the streets and tube stations because of bomb scares and it seemed like the most exciting place in the world to be. For a short time after that mum and dad would occasionally discuss where our next holiday would be, but that next holiday never happened and eventually the whole subject of holidays was dropped and never mentioned again.
     So although an afternoon's fishing with dad is certainly not my idea of fun, at least it feels like I'm escaping for a little while. I'm not even sure if I'm going to mention my situation to him now. Maybe it would be nice to just forget about it for a day.
     It takes about forty minutes to reach the picture postcard wee harbour. Dad struggles into his waders as I transfer the equipment from the car into Duncan's boat. It's only a seventeen-footer but there's a couple of bunks and, thankfully, a small engine. At least I won't get lumbered with all the rowing like I used to when we fished the lochs when I was wee.
     Dad manoeuvres the boat down the slipway, wading slowly around to the bow until the sea is up to his chest. As I stand feeling decidedly useless and clumsy, I worry that he'll slip on the seaweed he warned me about and split his head open. I'm sure he must know what he's doing but it looks terribly complicated and I wish we could just get on with it. I watch him undo the straps that harness the trailer to the boat and try to push the undercarriage up the slipway before my impatience finally gets the better of me. I grab hold and help him pull it back up, securing the wheels with a couple of bricks. It never dawned on me that all this pallaver would be required to get a boat into the sea. I always assumed you just dropped them over the side of the harbour wall and they landed the right way up.
     As dad finally pulls the boat clear of the slipway he gets in and shouts me over to the ladder at the side of the jetty. I climb down and jump into the boat, feeling almost excited. Dad yanks the engine and we splutter past the breakwater into the seemingly vast expanse of the Forth. It's 10.15 on a Sunday morning, the sun is glinting off the waves and I start to see why he makes such a fuss about sea fishing. It's like we're sitting on top of the world.
     My initial feelings of nausea as I get used to the bobbing are soon surpassed by a sort of calm, excited contentment. Leaning my head back, I trail my fingers in the warm sea as we rock towards Seafield Tower.
     We stop near a buoy and let the boat drift. Dad stands behind me and demonstrates how to drop the line and reel it in. It feels more like proper fishing than casting which I used to be terrible at. I enjoy the unusual sensation of having my father's arms around me as he tries to show me how to tell when the line has hit the sea bed. My smooth, waxen fingers look feminine cradled in his rough, powerful hands. I don't care about fishing, I just want him to hold me. A strong sense that this is my father and I am his son makes me feel incredibly safe and untouchable as I watch the worm's blood rolling along the groove at the side of the boat.
     Dad tries to make our hooks irresistible by loading his home-made mackerel flies with generous helpings of the serpents he dug earlier. Before long my rod is jerking in appreciation, not with mackerel but cod. It's not a long struggle like trying to land a trout. I just reel in, dad unhooks the fish and chucks it at the crate inside the boat. The first one is still slapping about in disbelief when we throw the second and third in. They seem to take hours to die.
     We catch so many in the initial flurry that I begin to wonder if Jesus has walked past on the water when I was looking the other way. Any we catch that are less than a pound, we either chop up as bait, or dad slits open and throws into the air to be swallowed whole by seagulls in flight. If we were throwing chunks of ourselves into the air, they would eat that, too. Nothing is wasted. It seems we are all carnivores.
     Despite the fact that the cod seem abundant to the extent that on several occasions I hook two at the same time, dad is adamant that we catch some mackerel. Duncan supposedly caught mackerel here a fortnight ago and dad's been tying his special flies all week. We lift the anchor and begin following hit squads of gannets as they plunge into the water as this is apparently the best way to gauge where the scholes are lurking. I say apparently because we catch nothing for the next four hours. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, dad remains resolute that the ultimate catch is just a cast away and as we continue our pointless chase I become increasingly bored and irritated.
     Finally, after much coaxing and cursing at the waves, we go back to the buoy where we started and drift for a while. The water is only about fifteen feet deep and my line keeps catching on the rocky seabed and drawing under the boat. Dad remains patient, however, as he cuts line after line, losing his precious mackerel flies, weights and ever-decreasing bait. Each time I get caught he calmly reminds me to bounce my tackle off the seabed but I've lost interest to such an extent now that I keep going into little dreams of unhappiness and forgetting. It seems like nothing can bother him though, he's just so delighted we're out fishing together again. He looks like he does in photos taken of us when I was a baby. His face is completely relaxed, not screwed-up in frustration or exertion like it so often is and his wrinkles seem to have disappeared.
     Taking my rod from me he leans them both across the boat, lets the lines trawl in the water and brings the bag of rolls and coffee from inside the cabin. How come tomato and luncheon meat rolls taste so good when you eat them outside? I wouldn't go near them in any other circumstances. As we share the plastic flask top of coffee, dad puts his arm around me and points at a seal watching us about fifty feet away. It takes me a while to make out its grey flesh amidst the grey choppy sea and the fog that is starting to steam off the waves. By the time I finally manage to focus he's looking at a family of puffins bobbing past on the other side of the boat. Dad's like that. He seems to notice things that nobody else does, like he's a predator himself. Birdcalls, the names of all the different types of mushrooms, which animals do which droppings. He can even spot birds sleeping in trees and bushes at night. I don't recall my grandmother being an owl but it sometimes seems like she must have been.
     The way he looks at the world is so unique, so natural, I know he'll understand. I don't mean for him to tell mum or anything but I just want him to know me as well as he knows his animals and plants. His instincts are so keen he possibly already knows. Staring at him, I try to work out what to say, attempt to get the words to form in my head. The more I mull it over though the harder it gets. Dad notices me looking at him and gives me a contented smile. Tell him, tell him, you've got nothing to worry about, he loves you, it won't matter to him.
     “You're looking awfie deep in thought there, son. You're a bit of a dreamer like your old man, eh?”
     I smile back. This is it, the perfect opportunity, just say it. Say it now. I'm taking breaths to launch into it then silently exhaling them again as I argue with myself. Do I just come out with it? Do I try to break it gently? I have to say something, just start speaking and take it from there.
     “Know Shirley, dad?” Shirley is my best pal who comes to all the clubs with me. She likes it on the scene because guys don't hassle her. She's always been really supportive. Why did I mention her though? I don't know, he likes her. If I tell him Shirley knows maybe he'll think it's ok.
     The poor guy looks all excited.
     “Aye son, she's a great wee lassie, I've got a lot of time for her. You've done well for yourself there.”
     Oh no. What does he think I'm about to tell him? I've always assumed he knew we were just friends, but I suppose it could look like we're having a relationship. We see so much of each other and I've never bothered to explain otherwise.
     “No dad, this isn't exactly about Shirley. Well, she sort of knows about it and everything but I only mentioned her so you'd know she knows, you know, and she's ok about it.”
     My tongue is tripping over my words and I seem to have completely lost the ability to form a coherent sentence. Dad seems impervious to this though.
     “Why don't you make it official, son? You pair have got something really special. Don't worry about playing the field, it's too dangerous these days, don't you think? Your mother was my first real girlfriend and we're alright . . .”
     This is getting worse. Why did I have to mention Shirley in the first place? This is nothing to do with her. He won't let it go though.
     “. . . or maybe get a wee flat together till you find your feet. That's what they all do nowadays isn't it. I can talk your mother round, you know what she's like.”
     “No, dad. It's not like that. We're not going out together or anything. She's just a pal.”
     He smiles.
     “You dinnae have to pretend to me, son. You're seventeen, I can still remember what that's like. I'm not a prude, you know, as long as you're careful and that.”
     “No dad, honestly. Shirley is my friend. Just my friend.”
     “Dinnae be silly. Nice-looking lassie like that. You'll be telling me you're a poof next.”
     He ruffles my hair like this is a joke and he's waiting on the punchline.
     “I am, dad.” It comes out so quiet I'm not even sure if he's heard me or not. A smile remains on his lips but his eyes say it all. As he stares at me like a rabbit on the motorway, I think I see the wrinkles starting to break out again. I wait for him to cry, or start screaming or belt me one but he turns around as if nothing has happened and starts reeling in his line.
     “It's getting dark. We better make tracks while the tide's in.”
     As he begins clearing everything away, dismantling the rods, putting the flask back in the bag, not looking at me, not acknowledging me, I get up to help but he pushes me away. Emptying the bait bucket and rinsing it in the sea, he throws it into the cabin.
     “Did you hear what I said, dad?”
     “I heard you fine,” and he tugs on the engine cord until the chugging drowns out any other attempt at conversation. He stares straight ahead as he guides the boat back towards the harbour. Why won't he speak to me? Even if he went mad it would be better than this, but I can't bring it up again myself. He's too upset as it is.
     By the time we've pulled the boat back up the slipway and transferred our stuff to the car, dark and thickening fog obscures the sea. No further words have been exchanged. I'm deeply regretting telling him. I should have waited. We get in the car and pull out of Dysart onto country roads. We came here on the motorway so I'm not sure where we're going now.
     “Is this a different way back?”
     “Aye.”
     Having never seen him so close to losing his cool before I begin to get a bit worried.
     “Why are we going this way?”
     “I don't know,” and he just keeps staring straight ahead, like he won't be able to control himself if he has to look at me.
     The fog is thickening as we manoeuvre our way round the narrow winding road. It is impossible to see further than a few feet in front. Dad is doing forty miles an hour though, cursing each time we mount the grassy verge on corners. Are we even going in the right direction? Why won't he say something? I have so much more I need to tell him. We're going to end up in field if we carry on like this.
     “Dad, please. Let's go back to the motorway. It's dangerous along here. You can't see where you're going.”
     “I've driven in fog before.”
     It's no good. This is obviously how he chooses to deal with it all. There's no point in trying to take it any further when he's in a ridiculous mood like this, so I clench my teeth and look out the window, brassing it.
     Suddenly, out of nowhere, in front of us, I see something on the road in the midst of the white light.
     “Woaaah, dad. Look-out,” and there's a slight thump before the car comes to an abrupt halt against the fence. Dad is hyperventilating, like he can't catch his breath and gripping on to the steering wheel for dear life. Touching his arm, I lean over to check he's alright. He pulls himself away and lunges out the car, back off along the way we've come.
     By the time I reach him he's kneeling in the middle of the road, holding something in his arms. At first I think it's a big white bag of something, but as I get down beside him I realise it's a lamb. There doesn't seem to be any blood but the thing isn't moving at all.
     “Is it dead? What'll we do with it?”
     Dad continues looking down at it.
     “Do you know how much these things are worth? Do you know how much meat you get off a little thing like this? I hope there's plenty room in the freezer.”
     He staggers back to the car with the animal weighing his body into a slouch. We put its poor wee body in the boot. I wonder if it even knew what happened? There's no sign of injury so it looks like we maybe just hit its head. The thing's so small we probably drove right over it.
     Much to my relief dad reverses and we make our way back the way we've come. As he's persisting with the strong and silent crap, I just stare out the window at Fife scooting past. How can he behave like this, knocking down some poor bloody sheep in a fit of pique? But I won't let it put me off. I will make him listen, understand. There's so much I need to tell him.
     “Dad, about what I said back there. Can't we talk about it?”
     He tries not to answer me but I think even he's starting to realise how daft he's being about the whole thing.
     “You've told me, son. Can we just leave it at that. I don't want to hear the details.”
     Details? It's my life we're talking about here. I thought parents were supposed to like their children being open with them.
     There's another long, painful silence until we get back to the Forth Road Bridge. It's clear over in Edinburgh, but on the Fife side, fog barricades the coast from its affluent neighbour. Almost as soon as we get onto the bridge, the car starts shuddering, banging as if the engine's about to explode. Dad swerves slightly with shock. I start pleading with him to stop but the road is so busy I can't really see how he can.
     “What's going on, does this normally happen? Is it crosswinds?” I squeal at him, becoming hysterical as the banging gets louder and faster. Then I realise he's sitting there laughing. Laughing at me.
     “What's wrong. What is it?”
     “It's our boy in the back.”
     “What?”
     “The bloody lamb. It seems to have made a miraculous recovery.”
     I try to gauge where the sound is coming from and realise he is right.
     “I just hope it shuts up when we get to the toll. Switch the radio on, drown the wee bugger out.”
     I obey him and Born to Run reverberates round the car as we approach the booth and dad throws forty pence at the attendant with our hostage trying to kick his way out of the boot.
     We switch off the ghastly Bruce Springsteen as we speed up towards Drumbrae. There are lulls in the noise interspersed with periods of feverish banging. Everytime the noise starts up again dad starts laughing.
     “What'll we do with it? Mum won't let us keep a sheep in the back garden.”
     He looks at me in disbelief.
     “I wasn't planning on making friends with it. I'll kill it when we get back. No problem. Lamb chops till Christmas.”
     “Kill it? How are you going to kill it? You can't do that, it's not fair.”
     “And knocking it over would have been.”
     “Yeah, but that was an accident. What are you going to do, poison it?”
     Dad's laughing again, not in the warm way he usually laughs though but as if he finds me ridiculous.
     “Clunk it on the head. It'll be so knackered by the time we get home it won't even notice.”
     It's my turn to go into a sulk. I'm sure all this macho nonsense is for my benefit. Maybe he thinks I'm gay because he's too sensitive, that acting like a hard heterosexual for five minutes after seventeen years is going to cure me. I don't need it.
     As we drive towards a bus stop on the Calder Road, the sheep renews its thundering and I'm sure a few people notice. Someone's going to think it's a kidnapping and take our number. How can a half-dead, wee creature like that make so much noise? How are we going to get it out the boot if it's having convulsions like that?
     As soon as we pull into the street I see the neighbour's two boys kicking a ball around with their friends outside our house. Is stealing sheep a criminal offence? Even if it was lost in the first place? It must be I suppose. In the Wild West you'd probably get hung for it.
     Dad makes me get out and go ahead to open the garage door. The kids notice regardless.
     “Is it no aboot time you got a new car, Mr Fraser? That one sounds in an awfie state.”
     As dad gets out and we shut the rumbling monster in the garage behind us, they seem to notice that it's coming from the boot.
     “What's that in yer car, Mr Fraser? Have you kidnapped a wee lassie? Is Mrs Fraser oot for the day?”
     When we get back in the house dad goes through to the kitchen to tell mum she doesn't need to go to the butchers for a while. I stand waiting for him in the living room for no reason in particular since I really don't want to watch him kill it, just that I feel it's not over yet. Ages seem to pass and I begin to worry that he's telling her about me. This seems unlikely, though as they never seem to talk about important things together, it's all just small-talk from him and snidey comments from her. It's probably always been like that although I really can't really imagine either of them existing before I was born.
     Eventually dad comes back through and beckons me out the back and through to the garage. I try to sense if mum is any different towards me as I walk past her in the kitchen, but she seems too engrossed in the lamb. Naturally, that's much more important than me, than my life.
     I sort of hope it will jump out and kick him in the face when he opens the boot. It would serve him right, swanning about the place like bloody Tarzan. A few hours in teuchterland has made him go all man of the earth. I've never felt such animosity towards him before. Mum and I stand back as he cautiously opens the boot. The lamb is bleating hysterically but has rolled onto its back amongst all our debris and the fishing bag is stopping it rolling back over again. Dad pulls out the plastic bags with the fish in them and checks inside, as if the poor terrified creature would have been in any mood for sushi during the past hour. Mum oohs and ahs a bit, then takes the fish back into the house and leaves the men to deal with the main course. The boot is stinking as the scared wee thing must have crapped itself several times.
     Dad gently lifts it out with an oily towel wrapped round it. Its legs go like a cartoon character running as it tries to find the ground. Dad makes me take hold of it and picks up the mallet he used to pitch the tent when we last went fishing together years ago. It's probably been lying here ever since.
     The lamb is skittery and difficult to keep hold of. Getting down on my haunches I grab it round the neck as it struggles and mehs in terror. I try to steady its head. The whole thing is sickening me but I know this is some sort of test, some ridiculous rite of passage. Dad now looms above it with the mallet poised, tongue between his teeth.
     “Hold it steady.”
     The thing senses its coming demise and starts struggling more than ever. I try to keep its skull still as dad brings the hammer down on its crown. The jolt is like a gun recoiling. Then the struggling stops. As we both look down, a small trickle of blood runs down its mottled grey fur. I loosen my grip slightly to let it fall to the ground but its eyelashes flicker and it lets out a pained, pathetic meheheheheh.
     “Hit it again, hit it again,” I scream, grabbing it round the neck and proferring its head for another belting. It feels really bad what we're doing but I'm starting to like it. I brace myself for the next impact.
     “Do it, do it,” I order but dad just stands there suspended, trembling.
     “There, come on. Do it now, it's calmed down.”
     But it lets out another tragic whimper and I look up at dad who looks in even worse shape than the sheep.
     “I've hurt it. I've hurt it,” he wails, dropping the mallet onto the concrete and running out the garage, leaving me with the stunned thing burring into my chest. I sit for a while waiting for him to come back but after about twenty minutes I realise I've just been left here.
     I try to make the sheep as comfortable as possible, putting it back in the boot with the oily rag round it, moving the fishing bag and tackle to give it more space. Its head is still bleeding a little and it looks like it's on its last legs. There's a strange wheezing noise coming from it as well, a really pained sort of death rattle. If I close the boot it'll probably die anyway, but it gives out another of its little pathetic bleats and I can't bring myself to.
     This is ridiculous, being lumbered with this thing on my conscience that wasn't even my fault. This time yesterday, everything was fine. Getting the result of the test back was nothing compared to this. What a fucking week! It's mehehehing again, staring at me with these stupid big eyes, begging for an end to its pain. I can't just leave it here like this, to die on its own. It's cruel. Lifting the mallet off the concrete, I raise it above my head.