The Auld Mither

by Meikle, William

  The Auld Mither

  by

  William Meikle

  ~-o0O0o-~

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  ~-o0O0o-~

  George Duncan was getting impatient. He’d spent three sleepless nights getting this presentation together, a last gasp attempt to keep the company afloat, and his people in work.

  It’s not my fault if they’re too dumb to know that their own livelihoods depend on this.

  “If I could have your attention please,” he said, trying not to let his irritation show. “I think we’re ready to begin.”

  They’d already been there for twenty minutes, chatting, drinking coffee, discussing the fucking weather -- it’s Scotland, it’s wet, deal with it -- anything other than focus on the task at hand. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t spent months talking about it - the need for modernisation and efficiency to bring prosperity to this small town on the edge of the Highlands; an attempt to stop the flow of jobs and money to the bigger cities and prevent the slow fall into shortbread-tin tourism that afflicted much of the rest of the North. He’d tried to impress on them all the importance of the meeting. But here they were, the same country hicks they’d always been, more interested in rain and wind than the future of the company.

  Maybe I should just sack the lot of them, sell up and run.

  It was looking more desirable with each passing day. But George Duncan was a businessman, and he had his pride. This latest idea had been run past his bankers, his silent partners, and several of the richer patrons of the local golf club. If he backed down now it would diminish him in the eyes of powerful men, and he couldn’t have that.

  “Please?” he said, motioning the other board members to their seats. The tone of his voice brooked no disobedience, and this time they all sat in their places.

  He allowed himself a small smile.

  It’s showtime.

  He used a remote control unit to dim the lights until only the projected screen on the wall provided any light. The other four were now little more than shadowy figures around the table.

  “I’ve brought you here for the final decision,” George began. “I’m not prepared to hang around on this any longer. I’m pushing on with the expansion plan.”

  As he knew she would, Sheena Davis interrupted almost immediately.

  “I thought we agreed to wait?”

  She was a whiner. George hated her with a vengeance, but when he had bought this business, it had been from her family, and one of the conditions was that she would be on the board. He didn’t have to like her though.

  “Wait for what?” George replied sarcastically. “Christmas?”

  The woman’s whine got louder. She sounded just like one of the animals out in the pen, always bleating and whining, even when they were well fed, well looked after. Like the beasts, the Davis woman didn’t know how lucky she was.

  And like the beasts, I’ll just have to show her who’s Boss.

  “We decided to test the market first...” she continued.

  George nipped it in the bud fast.

  “No. There’s no time for that. I know this business. I’ve been a butcher all my life. And this is my company, when push comes to shove.”

  “And we don’t get a say?” The whine was full strength now and George was rapidly losing patience. He fought to keep his temper, and replied as evenly as he was able.

  “Not on this, no.”

  “I’m not sure I like that,” the Davis woman said. Even although it was too dark in the room to see, George could imagine the supercilious smirk on the woman’s face. She had come from old money, and never let George forget his own humble beginnings in a shop in Derbyshire. His calm finally snapped and his voice rose.

  “I’m not sure I give a fuck.”

  He had to imagine the shock on her face, but some of it was more than evident in her voice.

  “I’ve never been so insulted.”

  George laughed.

  “You need to get out more.”

  He paused and spoke softly, but the room had fallen so quiet there was no way that they couldn’t hear him. “You all know where the door is. Does anybody want to leave?”

  Nobody moved from the table. The Davis woman sniffed loudly, just to let him know she wasn’t happy, but he knew he had her -- he had them all.

  “Thank you,” he said, and threw them a bone. “Don’t worry. You’ll find I’ve put some thought into it.”

  He brought up the first screen. It showed a graph with steadily increasing growth against time. George slipped into his singsong presentation voice. He was happier now. He’d practised this bit, and if there was one thing he knew well, it was how to sell an idea.

  “My projected figures show that with an increased throughput of two hundred per cent, we can increase profits nearly fivefold. If you’ll just...”

  Something scraped, like fingernails on a blackboard. A shadow passed in front of the screen, a bent and mangled hand with long taloned fingers.

  George was stopped in mid-flow. It didn’t improve his temper any.

  “Who did that? Stop playing silly buggers!”

  A bulky shadow moved across in front of the projector, something misshapen, but very fast. Somebody -- one of the women - screamed.

  Blood sprayed in the air and splattered across the projected screen.

  There was a shocked silence for two beats, then louder screams pierced the quiet - this time both male and female. There was a frenzy of activity in the dark room. Chairs were knocked over and there was another scream as bones cracked under a heavy footfall. A body was thrown against a wall, the crash shaking the whole room before falling to the floor like a puppet after its strings had been cut.

  Through all this George had stood still, unable to take in what was happening around him, afraid to move unless the chaos around him swallowed him as well.

  Silence fell in the boardroom - but only for a second. A moist ripping sound, too loud in the dark, filled the space. George tasted blood and smelled the same acrid tang of fear that he knew all too well from the beasts he’d had under his knife over his years in the trade.

  Something glowed luminescent blue and shadows ran across the walls. A body passed in front of the projector and knocked it sideways to a skewed angle.

  One final scream gave way to dead silence.

  George sidled around, back pressed hard against a wall, left hand feeling along, hoping against hope that he’d find the door handle. Instead his hand touched something warm -- warm and wet. He smelled blood, the coppery tang almost making him gag. Before he could try to move again something hard and cold pressed against his ribcage.

  “Butchery is it?” a soft voice said. “Let me show you where butchery gets you.”

  He had a moment when he felt something cold slice through clothes, flesh and fat. His lower torso and legs felt wet and warm, but George felt empty inside.

  He was dead before he hit the floor.

  The last thing he saw was blood running down the screen, partly obscuring the slide he’d spent so long preparing - the one which read: ABATTOIR: PROPOSED ENLARGEMENT.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Lucy Duncan had finally decided to tell Dave how their father died.

  About time too - I thought I was going to get the cold shoulder for the whole trip.

  The journey had proved to be a nightmare so far. The train was full, so full that although they were travelling first class, they were sharing the compartment with a horde of others - students, squaddies and oilmen, all of them drunk, half drunk or intending to get that way. The buffet car had closed down at Newcastle and every toilet seemed to be backed up, lending a faint odour of disinfec
tant and piss to the proceedings.

  Then there was Lucy. She’d studiously avoided his questions so far.

  “Not here,” she’d said, several times now. But Dave kept asking, kept insisting.

  I knew the old bastard too well. He wouldn’t go without humiliating me -- not without good reason.

  Finally Lucy gave in, but not without looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping -- family business was to be kept quiet, kept in the family.

  Like father like daughter.

  “Nobody knows how it happened,” she said. She leaned over the table towards Dave and lowered her voice. “There was a board meeting - Dad was submitting proposals for a wholesale modernisation of the farm.”

  Dave was surprised to see tears in his sister’s eyes. He wanted to comfort her but a sudden laugh from the next table caused him to stiffen and hold his peace. That was more of the old man’s conditioning.

  Never let them know what you’re feeling. It gives them an advantage.

  She went quiet as a squaddie rose from the table across the carriage from them and loudly announced he was going for a wazz. Lucy flinched, her sensibilities offended, even more so when the squaddie dropped her a wink on the way past. She waited until the soldier was out of earshot, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and watched the scenery roll by for long seconds before continuing.

  “Nobody knows what happened in there. They were still there at ten o’clock when the secretary finally gave up and went home. But nobody else did. A cleaner found the bodies early yesterday morning.”

  That did make Dave jump, so much so that he almost spilled the cold coffee he’d been cradling since Darlington.

  “Bodies? You mean it wasn’t just Dad? I thought it must have been a heart attack - he was certainly due one. How can there be bodies?”

  She tried to speak, but it caught in a hitch in her throat, and the tears were back. It took several more dabs of the handkerchief before she could continue.

  “Murder, that’s what it was. No, more than murder. Butchery.”

  “What do you mean - butchery?”

  But there was to be no reply. She sat back and stared out of the window. Dave knew the signs - conversation was over for a time. He watched her for a while - the thick curve of her neck, the square jaw and the steely eyes. He had to turn away - she looked too much like him. He certainly didn’t want to press her. Her rages were legendary in the family, almost as bad as the old man’s.

  Dave still didn’t know why he was sitting there. She had phoned him yesterday afternoon.

  “I’ve got some bad news for you.” When those words were said every possible catastrophe short of nuclear war went through his mind in less than a second, so when she told him that the old man had died he was almost relieved. Almost. He was sure the old bastard would find a way to harangue him from beyond the grave.

  “I want you to come with me and stand with me at the funeral,” Lucy said.

  Dave had a sudden mental picture of all three of them in a car, Dad driving, his dead fingers still giving a two-finger salute to any other driver with the gall to get in his way.

  “You can come, can’t you? Your holidays start soon, don’t they?” There was a tone in her voice Dave had not heard there before. If he didn’t know her better he would have thought she was about to beg. “I’ve organised the transport and everything.”

  “I hope you got the most expensive service available,” Dave said. “You know what he was like.”

  “Oh Dave” she sighed, sounding so disappointed, and so like his mother that he gave in. She said she’d pick him up in the morning, and Dave had proceeded to get more drunk that he’d ever been in his life. At first it was a sense of relief, a final freedom from tyranny and abuse. But after a few more beers he’d got maudlin, telling anyone in the bar who would listen about his childhood, both highs and lows. Then the self-disgust had kicked in and he’d started on the whisky. Things had got a bit hazy after that. He had a vague memory of standing in the middle of an otherwise deserted public park, screaming his rage at a father who would never again be around to hear it.

  I never even got the chance to tell him to fuck off.

  The hangover was starting to fade now, but the rage was still there. He thought it always would be. He stared out the window as they went through Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy and Dundee without him seeing any of them.

  Finally Lucy spoke again.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said, and touched his hand, almost a gesture of affection. Then, as if embarrassed by any show of weakness, she went back to studying her reflection in the window. She didn’t speak again until they were standing on the platform at Aberdeen station, waiting for a connection to Inverurie.

  “Dad made me executor of the Estate,” she said, as if it was a topic they had just been discussing. “We’ll have the reading of the will after the funeral.”

  “I won’t be staying around for that,” Dave said. “I came because you asked me to Lucy. I’m here for you, not him. If you think I’m going to sit in that draughty house while some old wrinkly goes through a list of my faults before deigning to give me a fiver then you’ve got another think coming.”

  “He did love you,” Lucy said quietly. “He loved us both.”

  “Bollocks. He was a miserable old bastard who never thought of a single soul other than himself. I might just hang around for a bit after the funeral -- but that’ll only be for as long as it takes me to piss on his grave.”

  And that was that. Dave got the stony-faced silent treatment all the way to Inverurie - giving him plenty of time to reflect on what life could be like free from the old man.

  Freedom. I don’t know what the word means.

  Growing up had been one long round of rigidity and conformism. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t get dirty, don’t speak before spoken to -- just don’t. Dave ended up living most of his life inside his head, in fantasy worlds of knights and dragons, cowboys and Indians, Britons and Saxons. And in all of them, the enemy always had the same face, the round, moon-shaped scowl of his father.

  The old man had made his fortune in livestock, or rather dead stock. At the time of his death he was Chairman of the biggest venison producer in the country. He was a self-made man, rising from farm laborer to pig breeder, abattoir manager to veal exporter and on, ever upwards. Once upon a time he had wanted Dave to follow in his footsteps.

  “Get out and get some blood on your hands,” he said. “It’ll make a man of you.”

  And, until Dave reached the age of eight, he honestly thought he might be able to follow the old man. Then he came home early from school one day to an empty house. For once he had some time on his own, and he used it fruitfully, kicking a football against the iron door of the garage in the backyard, taking a small joy in the fact that some of the neighbours might even be annoyed by the crash and boom every time the ball hit the target.

  Of course the old man had arrived right on cue, turning the corner into the yard just as the ball hit the centre of the door with the loudest clang yet. The ball rolled away and Dave didn’t bother going after it. There was no point. He wasn’t surprised when Father lifted the football and turned away. He only had to say one word - Come. Dave followed. He didn’t have a choice.

  That was the first, and only, day that Dave was allowed into the cold room. At the time they were running a butchering business from a shed out back. Dave knew there were things hanging from hooks in there, but he’d never once been tempted to look. Today Father was making sure he had to. Dave was led into the cold barn and forced to stand there while the old man took a big knife from a sheath and drove it through the football.

  The ball deflated with a soft fart but Dave didn’t dare laugh.

  “It’s time you found out what’s important around here,” the old man said, and handed Dave the knife. He turned Dave round and pushed him towards where a row of pigs hung from hooks.

  “One slash across the throat, then another through th
e belly,” the old man said, making swishing moves with his arms as he spoke.

  Dave hadn’t moved, couldn’t move. He was transfixed by the sight of a dead eye staring accusingly at him and he could only stand there, the knife hanging loosely in his hand. Hot tears formed at the corners of his eyes.

  “Well. Do it boy. Time to grow up.”

  But he couldn’t, no matter how much the old man ranted and raged. In the end the knife was taken off him. There was a flash of silver and Dave tasted blood in his mouth, felt it spatter in hot spots on his face. He had thrown up even before the entrails started to coil and roll in a slow moist plop to the ground.

  Dave couldn’t stop crying, and it was the tears more than his disgust that set the old man against him - for life. For the rest of that summer the old man had berated Dave, pacing around the living room, hurling abuse at the top of his voice.

  “You’re no son of mine,” he said, so often that most of the time Dave came to believe it, came to wonder whether maybe he was a changeling, swapped for the real son at the time of the birth. During his Father’s little turns Dave would squeeze his eyes shut until the tears came and the man stormed off in disgust. Dave retreated further into his inner world, forever trying, and failing, to slay the monster.

  The very next term his mother got him a place at boarding school. He would have been happy but for having to go home to face more abuse every mid-term and holiday.

  “You’re no son of mine,” had become the old man’s mantra, and he chanted it every day, driving Dave further away with every word. The old man had never hit him, but Dave would carry the scars until he died.

  By the time he was fifteen he’d achieved some kind of inner calm that allowed him to let the abuse wash over him. He took to staying at the school, preferring its empty corridors to the too-busy rooms at home. Mother sometimes came to visit, but his father had given up on him completely. The old man made a new will leaving everything to Lucy, and after their mother died, worn out and old before her time from having to cater to the whims of a tyrant, Dave swore he would never see the man again.