Three Button Trick and Other Stories

by Nicola Barker

  Later that afternoon he phoned J. Reilly’s and spoke to someone called Ralph. Ralph explained how he had bought the business two years before, but that he hadn’t bothered changing the name. Owen said, ‘Well, if it doesn’t bother you then it doesn’t bother me.’

  Ralph asked him a few questions about school and then enquired whether he had worked with meat before. Owen said that he hadn’t but that he really liked the sweet smell of a butcher’s shop and the scuffling sawdust on the floor, the false plastic parsley in the window displays and the bright, blue-tinged strip-lights. He said, ‘I think that I could be very happy in a butcher’s as a working environment.’

  He remembered how as a child he had so much enjoyed seeing the arrays of different coloured rabbits hung up by their ankles in butcher shop windows, and the bright and golden-speckled pheasants. Ralph offered him a month’s probationary employment with a view to a full-time apprenticeship. Owen accepted readily.

  His mum remained uncertain. Over dinner that night she said, ‘It’ll be nice to get cheap meat and good cuts from your new job, Owen, though I still don’t like the idea of a butcher in the family. I’ve nothing against them in principle, but it’s different when it’s so close to home.’

  Owen thought carefully for a moment, then put aside his knife and fork and said, ‘I suppose so, but that’s only on the surface. I’m sure that there’s a lot of bloodletting and gore involved in most occupations. I like the idea of being honest and straightforward about things. A butcher is a butcher. There’s no falseness or pretence.’

  His dad nodded his approval and then said, ‘Eat up now, don’t let your dinner get cold.’

  Owen arrived at the shop at seven sharp the following morning. The window displays were whitely clean and empty. Above the windows the J. Reilly and Sons sign was painted in red with white lettering. The graphics were surprisingly clear and ornate. On the door was hung a sign which said ‘closed’. He knocked anyway. A man with arms like thin twigs opened the door. He looked tiny and consumptive with shrewd grey eyes and rusty hair. Owen noticed his hands, which were reddened with the cold, calloused and porkish. The man nodded briskly, introduced himself as Ralph then took Owen through to the back of the shop and introduced him to his work-mate, Marty. Marty was older than Ralph—about fifty or so— with silvery hair and yellow skin. He smiled at Owen kindly and offered him a clean apron and a bag of sawdust. Owen took the apron and placed it over his head. Ralph helped him to tie at the back. Both Marty and Ralph wore overalls slightly more masculine in design. Owen took the bag of sawdust and said, ‘Is this a woman’s apron, or is it what the apprentice always wears?’

  As Ralph walked back into the main part of the shop he answered, ‘It belongs to our Saturday girl, so don’t get it too messy.

  We’ll buy you a proper overall at the end of the week when we’re sure that you’re right for the job.’

  As he finished speaking a large van drew up outside the shop. Ralph moved to the door, pulled it wide and stuck a chip of wood under it to keep it open. He turned to Owen and by way of explanation pointed and said, ‘Delivery. The meat’s brought twice a week. Scatter the sawdust, but not too thick.’

  Owen put his hand into the bag of dust and drew out a full, dry, scratchy handful which he scattered like a benevolent farmer throwing corn to his geese. The delivery man humped in half of an enormous sow. She had a single greenish eye and a severed snout. He took it to the back of the shop through a door and into what Owen presumed to be the refrigerated store-room. Before he had returned Ralph had come in clutching a large armful of plucked chickens. As Owen moved out of his way he nodded towards the van and said, ‘I tell you what, why not go and grab some stuff yourself but don’t overestimate your strength and try not to drop anything.’

  Owen balanced his packet of shavings against the bottom of the counter and walked out to the van. Inside were a multitude of skins, feathers, meats and flesh. He grabbed four white rabbits and a large piece of what he presumed to be pork, but later found out was lamb. The meat was fresh and raw to the touch. Raw and soft like risen dough. He lifted his selections out of the van and carried them into the shop, careful of the condition of his apron, and repeated this process back and forth for the next fifteen or so minutes. While everyone else moved the meat, Marty busied himself with cutting steaks from a large chunk of beef. When finally all of the meat had been moved Ralph went and had a cigarette outside with the delivery man and Owen picked up his bag of shavings and finished scattering them over the shop floor. On completing this he called over to Marty, ‘Do I have to spread this on the other side of the counter as well?’

  Marty smiled at him. ‘I think that’s the idea. It should only take you a minute, so when you’ve finished come over here and see what I’m doing. You never know, you might even learn something.’

  Owen quickly tipped out the rest of his bag over the floor at the back of the counter and scuffed the dust around with his foot. It covered the front of his trainer like a light, newgrown beard. Then he walked over to Marty and stood at his shoulder watching him complete his various insertions into the beef. Marty made his final cut and then half turned and showed Owen the blade he was using. He moved the tip of the blade adjacent to the tip of Owen’s nose. ‘A blade has to be sharp. That’s the first rule of butchery. Rule two, your hands must be clean.’ He moved the knife from side to side and Owen’s eyes followed its sharp edge. It was so close to his face that he could see his hot breath steaming up and evaporating on its steely surface. Marty said thickly, ‘This blade could slice your nose in half in the time it takes you to sneeze. Aaah-tish-yooouh!’

  Then he whipped the knife away and placed it carefully on the cutting surface next to a small pool of congealing blood. He said, ‘Rule three, treat your tools with respect.’

  Owen cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘Will I be allowed to cut up some meat myself today, or will I just be helping out around the shop?’ Marty frowned. ‘It takes a long time and a lot of skill to be able to prepare meat properly. You’ll have to learn everything from scratch. That’s what it means to be the new boy, the apprentice.’

  Ralph came back into the shop and set Owen to work cleaning the insides of the windows and underneath the display trays. Old blood turned the water brown. Soon the first customers of the day started to straggle into the shop and he learned the art of pricing and weighing. The day moved on. At twelve he had half-an-hour for lunch.

  After two o’clock the shop quietened down again and Owen was sent into the store-room to acquaint himself with the lay-out, refrigeration techniques and temperatures. As he looked around and smelt the heavy, heady smell of ripe meat, he overheard Ralph and Marty laughing at something in the shop. Ralph was saying, ‘Leave him be. You’re wicked Mart.’ Marty replied, ‘He won’t mind. Go on, it’ll be a laugh.’

  A few seconds later Ralph called through to him. Owen walked into the shop from the cool darkness of the storeroom. The light made his eyes squint. The shop was empty apart from Ralph and Marty who were standing together in front of the large cutting board as though hiding something. Ralph said, ‘Have you ever seen flesh, dead flesh, return to life, Owen?’ Owen shook his head. Marty smiled at him. ‘Some meat is possessed, you know. If a live animal is used as part of a satanic ritual at any point during its life, when it dies its flesh lives on to do the devil’s work. After all, the devil’s work is never done.’

  As he finished speaking he stepped sideways to reveal a large chunk of fleshy meat on the chopping board. It was about the size of a cabbage. Everyone stared at it. They were all silent. Slowly, gradually, almost imperceptibly, the meat shuddered. Owen blinked to make sure that his eyes were clear and not deceiving him. After a couple of seconds it shuddered again, but this time more noticeably. It shivered as though it were too cold, and then slowly, painfully, began to crawl across the table. It moved like a heart that pumped under great duress, a struggling, battling, palpitating heart.

  Owen’s face
blanched. His throat tightened. Ralph and Marty watched his initial reactions and then returned their gazes to the flesh. By now it had moved approximately five or six inches across the cutting board. Its motions were those of a creature in agony, repulsive and yet full of an agonizing pathos. Owen felt his eyes fill, he felt like howling.

  Ralph turned back to look at Owen and saw, with concern, the intensity of his reactions. He said, ‘Don’t get all upset, it’s only a joke. It’s got nothing to do with the devil, honest.’

  He smiled. Owen frowned and swallowed hard before attempting to reply. ‘Why is it moving? What have you done to it?’

  Marty reached towards the piece of convulsing flesh with his big butcher’s hand and picked it up. As he lifted it the flesh seemed to cling to the table. It made a noise like wet clay being ripped into two pieces, like a limpet being pulled from its rock. He turned it over. Underneath, inside, permeating the piece of meat, was a huge round cancer the size of Marty’s fist. A miracle tumour, complete, alive. The tumour was contracting and then relaxing, contracting and relaxing. Maybe it was dying. Owen stared at the tumour in open-mouthed amazement, at its orangy, yellowy completeness, its outside and its core. Marty said, ‘Sometimes the abattoir send us a carcass that shouldn’t really be for human consumption. They know that an animal is ill but they slaughter it just before it dies. They have to make a living too, I suppose.’

  With that he threw the meat and its cancerous centre into a large half-full refuse bag and began to wipe over the work surface as though nothing had happened. Owen could still make out the movements of the cancer from inside the bag. A customer came into the shop and Ralph walked over to serve her. Owen felt overwhelmed by a great sense of injustice, a feeling of enormous intensity, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He felt as though his insides were tearing. He felt appalled. Then instinctively he grabbed at the back of his apron and yanked open its bow. He pulled it over his head and slammed it on to the counter. He said, ‘I’m going home now. I’m going home and I’m taking this with me.’

  Before anyone could respond Owen had grabbed the heavy refuse bag full of bones and gristle and off-cuts and had struggled his way out of the shop. When he had gone, Ralph turned to Marty and said, ‘He was a nice enough kid.’

  Marty shrugged.

  Owen got out of the shop and walked a short distance down the road before placing the bag on the pavement and opening it. He reached inside and felt for the cancer. When he finally touched it, it sucked on his finger like a fish or a baby. He took it out of the bag, pulled off his sweater and bundled the cancer up inside it. He carried it on the bus as though it were a sick puppy. It moved very slightly. When he got home he crept upstairs and locked himself in his room. He closed the curtains and then sat on his bed and unbundled the tumour. He placed it gently on his bedside table under the warm glow of his lamp. It was growing weaker and now moved only slowly.

  Owen wondered what he could do for it. He debated whether to pour water on it or whether to try and keep it warm. He wondered whether it might be kinder to kill it quickly, but he couldn’t work out how. He wondered if you could drown a tumour (that would be painless enough), or whether you could chop it in half. But he couldn’t be sure that tumours weren’t like the amoebas that he’d studied in biology at school that could divide and yet still survive. He couldn’t really face destroying it. Instead he decided to simply stay with it and to offer it moral support. He whispered quietly, ‘Come on, it’ll be all right. It’ll soon be over.’

  After a few hours the tumour was only moving intermittently. Its movements had grown sluggish and irregular. Owen stayed with it. He kept it company. He chatted. Eventually the tumour stopped moving altogether. Its meaty exterior was completely still. He knew that it was dead. He picked it up tenderly and cradled it in his arms as he carried it downstairs, out of the house and into the garden. Placing it gently on the grass, he dragged at the soft soil in the flowerbeds with both his hands until he had dug a hole of significant proportions. Then he placed the still tumour into the hole and covered it over. In a matter of minutes the soil was perfectly compacted and the flowerbed looked as normal.

  He went inside and lay on his bed awhile. At six he went downstairs to the kitchen where his mother was beginning to prepare dinner. As he poured himself a glass of water she said, ‘I didn’t know that you were home. How did your first day go?’

  Owen gulped down the water and then placed his glass upside down on the draining board. He said, ‘I think I’m going to be a postman.’

  Then he dried his hands on a kitchen towel and asked what was for dinner.

  G-String

  EVER FALLEN OUT WITH somebody simply because they agreed with you? Well, this is exactly what happened to Gillian and her pudgy but reliable long-term date, Mr Kip.

  They lived separately in Canvey Island. Mr Kip ran a small but flourishing insurance business there. Gillian worked for a car-hire firm in Grays Thurrock. She commuted daily.

  Mr Kip—he liked to be called that, an affectation, if you will—was an ardent admirer of the great actress Katharine Hepburn. She was skinny and she was elegant and she was sparky and she was intelligent. Everything a girl should be. She was old now, too, Gillian couldn’t help thinking, but naturally she didn’t want to appear a spoilsport so she kept her lips sealed.

  Gillian was thirty-four, a nervous size sixteen, had no cheekbones to speak of and hair which she tried to perm. God knows she tried. She was the goddess of frizz. She frizzed but she did not fizz. She was not fizzy like Katharine. At least, that’s what Mr Kip told her.

  Bloody typical, isn’t it? When a man chooses to date a woman, long term, who resembles his purported heroine in no way whatsoever? Is it safe? Is it cruel? Is it downright simple-minded?

  Gillian did her weekly shopping in Southend. They had everything you needed there. Of course there was the odd exception: fishing tackle, seaside mementos, insurance, underwear. These items she never failed to purchase in Canvey Island itself, just to support local industry.

  A big night out was on the cards. Mr Kip kept telling her how big it would be. A local Rotary Club do, and Gillian was to be Mr Kip’s special partner, he was to escort her, in style. He was even taking the cloth off his beloved old Aston Martin for the night to drive them there and back. And he’d never deigned to do that before. Previously he’d only ever taken her places in his H-reg Citroën BX.

  Mr Kip told Gillian that she was to buy a new frock for this special occasion. Something, he imagined, like that glorious dress Katharine Hepburn wore during the bar scene in her triumph, Bringing Up Baby.

  Dutifully, Gillian bought an expensive dress in white chiffon which didn’t at all suit her. Jeanie—twenty-one with doe eyes, sunbed-brown and weighing in at ninety pounds—told Gillian that the dress made her look like an egg-box. All lumpy-humpy. It was her underwear, Jeanie informed her—If only! Gillian thought—apparently it was much too visible under the dress’s thin fabric. Jeanie and Gillian were conferring in The Lace Bouquet, the lingerie shop on Canvey High Street where Jeanie worked.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Jeanie offered, ‘all in one lace bodysuit, right? Stretchy stuff. No bra. No knickers. It’ll hold you in an’ everything.’ Jeanie held up the prospective item. Bodysuits, Gillian just knew, would not be Mr Kip’s idea of sophisticated. She shook her head. She looked down at her breasts. ‘I think I’ll need proper support,’ she said, grimacing.

  Jeanie screwed up her eyes and chewed at the tip of her thumb. ‘Bra and pants, huh?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Although keen not to incur Jeanie’s wrath, Gillian picked out the kind of bra she always wore, in bright, new white, and a pair of matching briefs.

  Jeanie ignored the bra. It was functional. Fair enough. But the briefs she held aloft and proclaimed, ‘Passion killers.’

  ‘They’re tangas’, Gillian said, defensively, proud of knowing the modern technical term for the cut-away pant. ‘They’re brief briefs.
’

  Jeanie snorted. ‘No one wears these things any more, Gillian. There’s enough material here to launch a sailboat.’

  Jeanie picked up something that resembled an obscenely elongated garter and proffered it to Gillian. Gillian took hold of the scrap.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘G-string.’

  ‘My God, girls wear these in Dave Lee Roth videos.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Jeanie asked, sucking in her cheeks, insouciant.

  ‘They aren’t practical,’ Gillian said.

  Jeanie’s eyes narrowed. ‘These are truly modern knickers,’ she said. ‘These are what everyone wears now. And I’ll tell you for why. No visible pantie line!’

  Gillian didn’t dare inform her that material was the whole point of a pantie. Wasn’t it?

  Oh hell, Gillian thought, shifting on Mr Kip’s Aston Martin’s leather seats, ‘maybe I should’ve worn it in for a few days first.’ It felt like her G-string was making headway from between her buttocks up into her throat. She felt like a leg of lamb, trussed up with cheese wire. Now she knew how a horse felt when offered a new bit and bridle for the first time.

  ‘Wearing hairspray?’ Mr Kip asked, out of the blue.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you are,’ he said, ever careful, ‘then don’t lean your head back on to the seat. It’s real leather and you may leave a stain.’

  Gillian bit her lip and stopped wriggling.