The Auld Mither

by Meikle, William

  It’s the beer I’m after, not the ambience. Any port in a storm.

  He headed inside. The place was so quiet that Dave thought it might be closed - the television was switched off, as were the fruit machines, and there was only a solitary light above the bar. He had already turned to leave when a voice called out.

  “Can I help ye sir?” The barman poked his head above the counter. “I was just stacking some bottles. Taking advantage of the lull in custom as it were.”

  He threw back his head and laughed, his humor so infectious that Dave had to join him.

  “Pint please,” Dave said.

  “Lager, Light or Heavy?”

  That had Dave stumped. A short lesson on ordering beer in Scottish pubs later and him and the barman were getting on famously. The first beer went down quickly.

  “Another please?” Dave said.

  “Coming right up.” The barman paused while pouring the beer, as if unsure whether or not to say anything, then seemed to come to a decision. “I was sorry to hear about your father,” he said.

  Dave felt as if his afternoon had just lurched into the Twilight Zone.

  “You know who I am? I’ve never been here before.”

  The barman shook his head.

  “Aye. You have. The old man used to bring you up here when you were a wee lad on your summer holidays.”

  Dave took a long gulp of beer.

  “I don’t remember that... I mean, I remember being in Scotland on holiday... But I don’t remember him ever taking me anywhere - let alone him taking me to a bar.”

  The barman gave Dave a fresh beer and took his money. He went to the till to make change, turning back to speak.

  “You were just a wee fellow at the time. But the old man was so proud of you. He showed you off every chance he could. You were in here often. I kent you as soon as I saw you.”

  Dave was non-plussed. None of this fitted with his view of how his world had worked back them.

  “You knew the old man well then?” he said.

  The barman nodded.

  “Aye. We all knew him around here. He came in two or three times a week. He liked his malt whisky, that he did. It was a shock to hear the news.”

  Dave took this as a sign that the man would say more.

  “Is there anything you can tell me about what happened? My sister says the police are keeping things tight to their chest.”

  He knew immediately that he’d pushed too hard. The barman suddenly looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

  “Sorry son. I only know what’s going out on the jungle drums. Something about bodies being found up at the slaughterhouse. That’s all I’ve heard.”

  His eyes told a different story. Dave tried again to push him.

  “Come on. A small place like this? There must be some gossip going around.”

  The barman turned away, heading off down the bar.

  “We’re not all sweetie-wives out in the sticks. We keep ourselves to ourselves. Your father knew it. That’s why he liked the place.”

  Dave was suddenly angry.

  He’s actually defending the old bastard.

  “He got to play lord of the fucking manor. That’s why he liked this place.”

  Again the barman shook his head.

  “He was a good man. Many around here will tell you that.”

  Dave laughed bitterly.

  “He was a ruthless bastard.”

  The barman was still having none of it.

  “The man’s not even laid in his grave yet. Show some respect.”

  The barman made a point of walking to the other end of the bar and started cleaning some glasses that looked to have been cleaned already.

  Dave dove into the beer, taking large swallows.

  Looks like that conversation is over.

  Over the next hour the bar slowly filled up and Dave’s beer kept coming.

  He tapped an empty glass on the bar.

  “Another please,” he said, not hearing the slur in his own voice.

  “I think you’ve had enough son.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll have another beer,” Dave said. He raised his voice and looked around the bar. “Or would you rather talk about what happened at the abbatoir?”

  The whole bar went quiet. The barman had a pained look on his face. But Dave got another beer.

  A wizened old man who had been in the corner seat for a while rose and took the stool beside Dave. He looked like he’d been wallowing in a mud bath for several days and when he smiled he had more gaps than he had teeth. He offered a hand to shake.

  Dave took it gingerly.

  “Name’s Jim. Jim Rogers. Do ye mind if I join ye? We don’t often get strangers hereabouts...and I like to talk to somebody different. Round here they’ve got nothing on their minds but farms and farmers. It makes for boring conversation.”

  Dave shuffled his stool over to make more room. Jim motioned the barman over and made a swirling motion with his hands above their glasses.

  “Same again here when you’ve got time,” he said, and turned back to Dave. “Ignore the smell son. It’s the animals. I work over at the slaughterhouse. I’m the mucker oot of the pens where they keep the deer. Blood and guts everywhere, runnels of it, mixed in wi’ shit and....hey, watch out.”

  Dave suddenly felt like he was about to throw up and he swayed on his stool. He nearly fell until Jim put out a hand to steady him.

  “Don’t mind me,” Dave said sheepishly. “I’ve got a thing about blood.”

  He grabbed his beer and sent half of it down to tell his stomach who was Boss here. The little man at his side did the same with his own. Dave’s earlier conversation with the barman came back to him.

  Maybe the old man knows something.

  “I’ve heard something was going on at the place. Wasn’t there a story on the news?” he said, trying to sound casual.

  The old man lit up, eager to talk.

  “Oh aye, it was on the television right enough. A one woman show if you catch my drift?”

  Either the drink had got to Dave, or the old man was talking in riddles.

  “What do you mean?”

  Jim tapped the side of his nose knowingly.

  “The auld Mither looks after her own.”

  The barman cleared his throat noisily and the old man stopped talking.

  He took another long, almost guilty, slug from his beer and waited until the barman was at the other end of the bar before resuming. He leaned forward and spoke softly, almost a whisper.

  “They say she got them all in less than a minute. Tore out their lights like a knife through butter. They say...”

  The whole bar suddenly fell silent.

  Jim looked up to see the barman standing directly in front of him.

  “Right Jimmy. I think you’ve had enough.”

  “I was just telling the lad a story...” Jim started, but the barman didn’t let him finish.

  “The lad doesn’t need your stories. He’s not just a lad. He’s mourning his faither.”

  Jim went pale.

  “He’s that boy?”

  The barman nodded. The old man dropped his head, got carefully off his stool and left quietly without saying another word.

  “What did he mean?” Dave said, having to struggle to form a sentence. “Who is this woman he was talking about -- this old mother?”

  The barman took the beer glasses from in front of Dave and washed the contents down the sink before replying.

  “The ramblings of an alcoholic. You shouldn’t listen to old Jimmy. Last week it was wee gray aliens in his bedroom. As for you wee man,” the barman said to Dave, “I think you’d best be getting on home - you’ve got your old man’s funeral to arrange.”

  It was only when Dave was out in the fresh air that he realised he didn’t know where he was. The cold air had combined with the alcohol and it drove all coherent thought away. His feet started taking him along the road. He had no plan, no thought other than to walk. He’d
get somewhere - eventually.

  Everything became jumbled in his mind - the squaddie winking on the train, the drinking , both here and back at Uni, the railway platform at Aberdeen, all became a swirling mosaic of images. And in each one a face leered at him, a round, moon-like face, his old man, jeering at him even from beyond the grave.

  The next thing he knew it was some time later. He was standing by the roadside, heaving up the contents of his stomach. He felt strangely better after that. He did his best to clean up his face, hoping he had kept his clothes slime-free, and finally stood up straight and looked around. He stood at a crossroads, and along all four branches there was only darkness and the soft brushing of the wind in the trees.

  Sobriety caught up with him. Somewhere along the walk and the subsequent proceedings he’d used up most of the effects of the booze. He was also completely lost. No, it was more than that - if he had been in a city he could have found his way to some recognisable landmark, but here he could see nothing. He looked upwards, searching for the stars, but that was a vain hope - he couldn’t even tell which was the North Star and which was a planet. A full moon leered down, taunting him.

  He was about to head down one of the roads - any road - when there was a sound behind him, just at the limits of his hearing, a rough rasping as of stone against stone. He turned.

  An old woman stood, no more than three yards away. Dave’s first thought was that he was back in his booze-induced reverie again, for he was strongly reminded of his old Grandma, who had died when he was six. All he remembered of her was the thick black mourning garments, and a smell of lavender. The woman in front of him was equally old and bent with age, equally clad in thick black velvet draped over a small frame.

  But there all resemblance stopped. And the smell in the air, even overpowering the taste of vomit in his throat, was one of animal mustiness.

  As yet the old woman had paid no attention at all to Dave. She bent over and lifted something from the verge of the roadside. He could see there were deep pockets sewn into her clothes, the contents of which clattered as she moved, as if full of stones.

  She bent again to pick up something and study it with such intensity that she was as still as a marble statute then, with a movement so quick he almost didn’t catch it, she transferred whatever it was from her hand to her mouth. She stood upright as Dave watched, the fine silver wings of her hair wafting in the breeze from under a headscarf so enveloping as to be almost a hood. He was about to call out to her when she turned, and his shout, already turning to a scream, was caught, frozen in his throat.

  There’s no face.

  That was his first impression. There was just a black void so deep he felt he was falling into it. Then her hand came up and pushed the hood away from her head, and this time Dave did scream, a scream echoed by the thing in front of him.

  Her face wasn’t a face. It was a construction, a mask of bone and hide stitched together with thick twine that glowed white in the dim light. Beneath the mask something moved - a squirming as of a tribe of maggots in dead flesh. He would have run then, but the eyes held him, deep blue eyes sunk deep beneath the mask eyeing him with cold appraisal.

  “So,” a voice said, even though the lips of the mask were sewn tight. “Are ye your father’s son, or are ye your own man? Are ye a herdsman or a butcher? It’s make your mind up time.” And she cackled, like a crone in a Disney cartoon. She stretched a hand out to Dave. It seemed to have been stripped of flesh until all that was showing was bone.

  Dave backed away - a reaction that brought more cackling.

  A cloud went over the moon, throwing them into sudden darkness. Dave’s eyes took seconds to adjust, and when they did he was once more unsure of the extent of his sobriety. The old woman still stood in front of him, but the black velvet of her clothes had taken on a blue, luminescent tinge such that she glowed, a ghostly wavering aura all around her that seemed to waft in the wind like the wisps of hair. She stretched out a hand again, the blue glow even more prominent where it ran along the white of the bone.

  “Are ye your father’s son, or are ye your own man?”

  The bone clacked, and Dave remembered old Jimmy’s words from back in the bar

  Tore out their lights like a knife through butter.

  He tried to back away but came up hard against a cold stone wall. She followed, the piercing eyes never leaving his.

  “Please,” Dave said, dismayed at the whine he heard there. “I don’t know what you want.”

  She cackled again.

  “Are ye a herdsman or a butcher?”

  A thin film of frost crackled as it ran all along the wall behind him and stretched across the road for yards around.

  Suddenly the crone’s face was lit by car headlights. She blinked, and Dave blinked, and when he looked back she was off and away. Her skirts rose up, exposing ankles ending in a pair of thick, cloven hooves. She turned ten yards down the road and pointed her hand at Dave. He saw the five long, serrated bones reflecting the faint moonlight as the cloud moved on. The glinting edges looked perfect for slicing meat.

  “It’s make your mind up time,” she said, in a whisper that he heard even above the sound of the approaching car. He looked to the car, then back along the road.

  The old woman had gone.

  The cab driver rolled down his window and shouted out.

  “Alan at the bar phoned me, and telt me ye were out on the road. Get in and I’ll take ye home.”

  It took long seconds to sink in, and even longer for Dave to recognise the cab driver.

  “Come on son. I haven’t got all night.”

  He got in and the driver took off, going if anything even faster than before. Dave didn’t speak, he couldn’t, his mind was still full of the sight of those fingers and hooves and the words the crone had spoken.

  Are ye your father’s son, or are ye your own man?

  He thought he’d known the answer to that, but the events of the day were starting to make him doubt himself. The old man had marked him in so many ways, and he was finding new scars all the time.

  The driver didn’t speak until they reached the house in Inverurie.

  “I would stay in for the rest of the night,” he said. “It’s a night for the Mither. Ye don’t want to meet her twice.”

  He screeched away, leaving Dave on the gravel path.

  Still dazed, Dave stood for a long time looking at the night sky and wondering, until the chill brought him to his senses and sent him scuttling for warmth. Suddenly he felt stone cold sober and in more need of a drink than ever. Checking his watch he was surprised to find it was still only late evening - there would still be a bar open somewhere. But the thought of walking strange roads had lost its appeal. Besides, there was a light on in the main room, visible as a warm glow of yellow through thick curtains. That meant someone was in, and that the drinks cabinet might be finally accessible. He turned his back on the night and headed inside. There was a comforting murmur of conversation coming from inside the main room as he pushed open the door.

  And stopped all talk dead in its tracks.

  There were only three people in the room, and they had all just gone quiet. The silence lasted just two seconds before the woman with her back to Dave turned.

  He hadn’t recognised his sister until that point. Her perfect facade had been severely dented - her hair hung in limp strands, tangled as if clawed with a trembling hand. Her make-up was a faded memory, streaked and running around her eyes. The effect was to age her by years, making her look like the vulnerable child Dave dimly remembered. As she rose from the chair she looked so much like their mother that Dave felt a hitch rise in his chest.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, touching her shoulder. He was amazed when she collapsed sobbing onto his chest. He held her awkwardly, unsure where to put his hands - they’d never been in this position before now. Her sobbing turned to full scale crying. Dave looked over her shoulder. The other two people in the room were young uniformed poli
ce officers, and both were pointedly looking at the floor. Finally Lucy raised her face towards him, fresh tears running down her cheeks.

  “They won’t let me bring him home,” she sobbed. “They won’t even let me see him.”

  He looked at the nearest policeman, who looked up and gave an embarrassed nod.

  Dave petted Lucy’s hair as if he was stroking a dog. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “We’ll probably have to wait until after the post-mortem.” He looked at the policeman for confirmation, but the officer was looking even more uncomfortable now.

  “What’s the problem?” Dave asked.

  The officer sighed and, before replying, looked at his partner for confirmation to proceed.

  “As I told your sister, we cannot release the bodies until..” he paused, as if struggling for words. “Until we’ve decided which parts belong to which victim.”

  Lucy began to howl, a high-pitched keening like a bird in pain. Dave gently sat her in an armchair and turned back to the policemen.

  “Tell me,” Dave said, then, when they showed signs of prevarication, “Please, just tell me. I’ll have to find out sometime.”

  The younger of the two looked pale and ill, but it was he who spoke first.

  “Have you ever seen a butcher strip a carcass, so efficient that everything is packaged into parts?” He gulped, suddenly having difficulty swallowing. “Well, that’s how it was. Four men and one woman to start with, around four hundred kilos of meat after. I don’t think you need to know more.”

  Dave sat down hard, feeling dizzy. The images in his mind were back, but this time it was of a dead pig, spinning on a hook as entrails flopped, steaming to the ground.

  The policeman was still speaking, but Dave had missed something.

  “…keep this information confidential until we find the killer?” The officer looked at Dave, and Dave nodded, hoping he’d made the right response. Then the meaning of the officer’s words sank in.