Meat

by Joseph D'lacey

  It was a matter of religious duty, however, and she would see it through.

  Rawlins brought her a glass of milk and though she’d seen him step with due care along the central walkway of the archives, there was a gritty film of grey particles on the surface of the milk by the time he arrived. She thanked him anyway. The milk relieved the pain in her stomach for moments only. She would have asked for another if the thought of drinking it didn’t make her feel so nauseous. The quivering of her fingers made the dust rise from the old record boxes and files no matter what she did.

  The Shanti files exhausted from creation to present day, she went to Richard Shanti’s file, checked the year of his birth and his recorded, if not actual, death and began to scan the files of every child born that year. Her plan was to cross-reference with orphaned children and look for possible switches. She was certain now, that if there was an infraction, it was down to someone taking the dead child’s place rather than an incorrect entry. The adult Richard Shanti was someone else’s child and had been taken in by the Shanti family.

  All that remained was to find out whose child he was.

  ‘Don’t you know anything about evolution, Collins? I thought you were educated.’ A wet, lippy suck on the cheroot. A swill of clear, fragrant vodka. ‘Food chains. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. It all makes sense, you know. More than this religious crap the Welfare put about. The strongest, smartest animal is at the top of the pile. Take this situation here; the hunter catches its prey. The hunter eats the prey. The hunter survives. The bloodline of the weaker animal is thus removed from the equation. Surely even you can understand that.’

  Collins didn’t respond. He looked into Magnus’s eyes. There was silence in the room but each man heard the sound of breathing in their own head; Magnus’s harsh and loud. He was used to it and it seemed normal. Black-coated Bruno’s breath was rapid and shallow, his adrenaline high, impatience making his heart beat fast. He shifted his weight from foot to foot wanting violence, wanting dismissal, wanting anything other than this silence. John Collins could hear his breath but it was a distant thing, not like the waves on a beach; slower, like tides. He controlled it and everything else became calm.

  After a couple of minutes, Magnus laughed. Bruno’s bunched shoulders dropped an inch or two. Collins continued to stare.

  ‘Your problem is that you still think you’re my equal. Bollock-naked and on your knees, you still believe your life means something, don’t you? You’re finished, Collins. You may not know it yet but your life is over right now. You have no more significance in this world.’ Collins’s voice came in some perfect nano-pause when neither Magnus nor Bruno were completely focussed. It made them both jump. His composed tones didn’t belong in the room. Magnus recovered himself first; in time to take the words in:

  ‘It isn’t of any concern to me,’ he said, ‘but my life is significant and will continue to be so, long after I die.’ He kept his eyes on Magnus. ‘You, on the other hand, while you may be remembered as an aberration, are already nothing more than a walking, talking carcass of fat and meat.’

  Magnus’s face heated up but he kept himself quiet. It wouldn’t do to let either of these men see him rattled. Instead of shouting, instead of mashing Collins’s pathetic testicles in his fist and putting out his cheroot in the scrawny man’s eye, he forced a chuckle. He finished his vodka and dropped the cheroot into the damp dregs where it hissed and died. He stood up and his full height became clear. He was a giant. Two metres of bulk and muscle. He had a paunch, but his chest was enormous and his arms bulged beneath his suit. His thighs were like the trunks of small trees and his neck was as wide as his head. Bruno felt the physical threat rolling off him in pulses and wanted to step backwards. He stayed where he was.

  Magnus walked around to the front of his desk which already stood on a plinth. To keep eye contact, Collins had to stretch his neck upwards. The movement was enough to cause Bruno to respond. He pushed Collins’s head down until he was bowing before the Meat Baron.

  ‘You’re a far weaker man than I,’ said Collins towards the rug.

  ‘I could snap your neck with one hand,’ said Magnus.

  ‘You could do anything you want to me while I’m tied up like this. Anyone could. That tells me that you’re afraid. I wonder why that is, Magnus. Why would a man as well put together as you be afraid of a thin little man like me? It’s because you’re frail inside. Your will is frail. Your mind is frail.’

  Bruno looked down and away, embarrassed; scared of what would come next.

  ‘You talk of the strong surviving but you could never fight a man like me and win, Magnus. You don’t understand what it takes to be truly strong. True, I’m an easy catch for your gang of thugs. I can’t deal with the numbers. But one-on-one you wouldn’t have a chance against me. You know this and that is why I’m kneeling naked and bound on your carpet instead of talking to you man to man. You’re afraid of me.’

  Magnus knew what Collins was up to. He was the cleverest and the bravest yet. Or maybe just the stupidest. He considered his options. He could take Collins downstairs now and finish him at leisure; one piece at a time. Hell, he could play his ace; cut off and eat Collins’s genitals while he watched. But he wanted to prove to Collins who was the stronger man. Make him admit it before he finished him off. No, it didn’t really matter what Collins thought once he was gone. And Magnus knew who the stronger of them was without having to prove it. But Bruno was here. If Magnus left it like this, there was a chance that Bruno would mention it outside the office. Strength was everything but the rumour of strength and ruthlessness was even more important. If people outside thought Magnus was letting people get away with insulting him, it would be the thin end of the wedge.

  No. This was an opportunity to burn his supremacy into the minds of all those who thought to undermine him in the town. He’d bring in some of the others and humiliate Collins in front of them all before he took the wretch downstairs into his private abattoir. But there was plenty of time for that.

  ‘So you want to fight me, is that it?’

  Collins said nothing.

  ‘Let go of him, Bruno.’

  The heavy hand released his neck again. Collins raised his head and met Magnus’s gaze with steady eyes.

  ‘When a weak man and a strong man come to blows, it’s not a fight,’ said Collins. ‘It’s annihilation.’

  Magnus pressed his lips together. He was meant to be a serious man, a man not easily amused. But he couldn’t help it.

  He chuckled. He snorted. He laughed.

  Soon Bruno was laughing too.

  Seeing the misplaced smile on Collins’s face made him laugh harder. It took several minutes to get control of himself. After a few final, disbelieving chortles he said, ‘You’re a fucking piece of shit, Collins. You’ll get your come-uppance. Right after I thrash the smile off your face forever.’ He chuckled again. ‘But there are a few more things I wanted to talk to you about first. That’s why you’re still up here and not…downstairs.’

  ‘I don’t want to see you playing games like this again, understand me?’

  ‘Why, Mama?’ asked Hema, ‘It’s just pretending.’

  ‘Your father wouldn’t like it. Besides, girls, what makes you think you can go cutting up your toys like this? Where do you think you’ll get another doll?’

  ‘We can make one,’ said Harsha. ‘We make dollies at school all the time.’

  ‘Not like this one. These smooth-skinned ones are hard to find and they’re expensive too. I won’t be getting you another.’

  ‘Can we play the meat game if daddy’s not here?’

  Maya stood with her arms folded and looked from one pretty face to the other. She could see no harm in them at all. She’d told them their father wouldn’t approve and that was an understatement. If he caught them playing the ‘meat game’ it might turn the tables; instead of her leaving, he might kick them out. The excuse she’d given wasn’t really anything to do with Ri
chard though. Watching her own children play at butchering and serving up the Chosen turned her stomach. It made her feel uneasy.

  It was particularly true today when, instead of blowing south east, the prevailing wind had reversed and smells from her husband’s workplace were carried back towards the town, back past their house. This was the second time she’d found the girls serving ‘meat’ to their toys and she wanted it to stop. If not, she wanted not to see it. Ever.

  ‘I’ll make you a deal. You can play the meat game. But you must never get caught doing it – either by me or your father. That means it’s a secret game. You never talk about it to anyone. All right?’

  The twins looked at each other and made no attempt to hide their delight at the idea of a secret game. It was even better than the original.

  They both nodded as if pulled by the same strings.

  ‘All right, Mama.’

  Nine

  ‘What have you been telling the townsfolk, Collins?’

  No hesitation.

  ‘The truth.’

  Magnus closed his eyes for a count of ten.

  ‘You’re not making things any better for yourself by being a clever dicky. What exactly have you told them?’

  ‘I’ve told them that they don’t have to eat meat to survive.’

  This much Magnus knew. Reports had been coming in about Prophet John for months. He hadn’t believed them at first. No one could talk such nonsense for more than a few days without being laughed bleeding into a gutter somewhere. But the rumours and stories had persisted and Magnus had sent out his feelers. People came back telling him about the lock-up meetings, how they were full every week, how word was spreading around the town that meat, the very basis of all life, was not necessary in the diet. Even then, Magnus couldn’t believe it was a serious problem. So there was a lunatic spreading cow shit about what people should and shouldn’t eat. So what? No one was going to fall for that kind of idiocy.

  But they did. In substantial numbers.

  For the first time in MMP’s history, in the history of Abyrne, supplies of meat had been greater than the demand for it. A few cuts of meat went unsold in butchers’ shops around the town. A few cuts of meat browned, greyed and spoiled. Magnus had never known the like of it. Steaks rotting in their displays while poor people all over the town starved.

  What were these non-eaters of meat eating instead? The vegetables and grains that the town farmers grew and sold were poor quality at best. A few people grew their own food, albeit reluctantly, to supplement their diets. What they really craved was meat. Meat would keep them strong for work. Meat would help their children survive to adulthood. The ability to afford and eat meat gave you status; it meant that you weren’t meat yourself. It meant that you were above cattle. The townsfolk ate meat to stay human. For someone to come along and tell them they didn’t need meat, that eating it was wrong; it was the most outrageous and insulting thing Magnus had ever heard. And some of the townsfolk were swallowing it the way they’d swallowed mince and stew the previous week.

  John Collins was responsible for all of it. John Collins was going to pay.

  The rumours were unbelievable but they were true. Magnus had to accept it as a fact when orders from butchers and other meat processors went down. He didn’t want the workers at MMP to know so he kept the chain speeds high, told his managers that demand was climbing just as it always had. And then he sent unmarked vans with loads of un-saleable meat to be dumped out near the wasteland where no one could see or smell it.

  The rumours carried a supernatural element too. If the idea of not eating meat was lunatic and unbelievable, the other aspect of the rumours was suicidal. How sophisticated people could believe in such self-destructive lies, he had no idea. But it revealed people’s nature. People were weak. People were stupid. People were gullible. People were corruptible. Upon such truths he had built his empire.

  Now that the man was here, before he beat him to a pulp of blood and bones in the pointless fight he was picking, and before he carved him up, he wanted to know what muck Collins had been spreading.

  Maybe, he thought, maybe I’ll make his a public slaughter. The first Abyrne has ever seen. He smiled. The idea made him feel a lot better. It would be the kind of execution that no one would ever forget. The kind of drawn-out death that people would write down and tell their children about. Collins would be the meat on his table for weeks and Magnus would be feared for eternity.

  People would eat meat gladly. Obediently. The way they were supposed to.

  From time to time Shanti passed through the herd of new mothers to check on the progress of WHITE-047 and her new calf. The calf was male and as stock from BLUE-792 there was a good chance it would become a bull and avoid the meat herd. Shanti was quietly delighted about this. It almost fitted with his fantasy of the calf growing up as a child. The reality, of course, was that the young bull would face all the same mutilations as any other young male except for castration. However, instead of being taken for slaughter when it reached maturity, the new bull might have years of successful mating to prolong its life. It was the best any of the Chosen could expect and Shanti was glad for that tiny mercy.

  The mothers and calves were kept together until the calves could be safely separated and given ordinary feed. The mothers would then rejoin whichever herd they had come from, assuming they were still healthy enough following calving. WHITE-047’s calf would be raised in a separate bull enclosure. Other male calves would enter the meat herds to be matured and fattened for slaughter as soon as possible. Female calves would join the regular herds to become milkers or breeding stock for a few seasons before entering the crowd pens themselves.

  The shortest-lived of all, barring those born weak or sick, were the veal calves. These young males would be chosen randomly from the newborns and taken away to a warehouse full of small, darkened crates. Here they would be fed a special mix of feed and their movement would be restricted by the dimensions of their enclosure. Prolonged darkness ensured that by the time they were old enough for slaughter, they were practically blind. The veal calves were kept in crates allowing them enough room to sit or lie down but never to stand to their full height. Very soon, each veal calf learned that standing up was a waste of effort and from then on they would remain seated or reclined. When they reached maturity, still much younger than any other cattle, they were taken for slaughter on canvas stretchers because they didn’t have the strength to walk.

  Veal slaughter took place in a smaller facility but with very low chain speeds owing to the rarity of the stock. It was one aspect of MMP processing that he had never been involved in and had no wish to be. Fortunately, his skills were required in the main slaughterhouse where the pressure of maintaining high chain speeds was a constant consideration.

  As the weeks passed, Shanti watched WHITE-047 and her calf’s progress. The calf looked strong and fed ravenously from its mother. One by one the rituals of the Chosen were performed on the calf and its kind. Their fingers were docked, their big toes were removed, they were dipped. Teeth were extracted as they appeared, to be pulled again when adult teeth arrived. At each new procedure, the mothers became agitated and the sound of sighing and hissing grew loud in the pens and feed lots. Calves were taken by the stockmen and returned minutes later, altered by their tools. The time came for tagging and Shanti watched carefully to see what WHITE-047’s calf would become.

  He passed by one day and saw WHITE-047 cradling her calf to her udders and rocking it. The calf was sighing and sucking alternately. Its chest hauled in huge gasps and released long hisses that Shanti knew would have been screams if it still had a voice box. Tears and milk smeared its blotched red face. A thin rivulet of blood still dripped from its right heel and there, finally, Shanti saw its fate sealed by a steel bolt and a coloured tag.

  WHITE-047 saw him watching but did not turn away. Unusually, the cow met his gaze from among the hundreds of others. She inclined her head fractionally. Shanti checked for stockm
en that might be watching before he returned the gesture as subtly as he could. He smiled in spite of the obvious pain her calf was suffering and he thought he saw her lips change shape too.

  The tag was bright blue. Not faded and cracked like its father’s. Its number was 793.

  ‘We shouldn’t. Not now.’

  ‘I’ve brought you everything you asked for. And more. Look.’

  Maya looked into the bag, saw the wrapped shapes of chops and black pudding. There were other things too. Hand-raised pies and still warm pasties. Saliva flowed beneath her tongue.

  ‘The girls will be home from school soon.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Any moment.’

  ‘Don’t you want the meat? I know plenty of people who do.’

  Fear of malnourishment yanked her like a fishhook. Now that she was plumping the girls up, seeing the rosiness of their cheeks, it was difficult – no, it was impossible – to entertain thoughts of them losing weight again. She must keep them well. That was her task. It was her duty. The only thing a mother could give in the world was love and nourishment to her children and she wasn’t going to allow anything to prevent her. She loved them. They came before everything else. No matter what the cost.

  Torrance had her pushed up against the sink, her back to the window where she watched for her family to return each day. His breath smelled of half-digested steak and diseased gums. His teeth were broken or discoloured and kissing him was almost enough to make her vomit. He moved closer pushing cracked lips out through his greasy beard and the stink of his stomach and mouth filled her nose.