The Butcher's Daughter

by Jane E James

  My father holds my hand tightly, until it hurts. The black suit he is wearing looks big on him and his face is gaunt and grey. Today is the first time he’s shaved in over a week and his skin is covered in small cuts. He is doing what he warned me not to—sobbing unrestrainedly, while my eyes remain dry. A boy with yellow hair and bright blue eyes edges forward to stand next to me. He surprises me by taking my other hand in his. I like the feel of his hand better than my father’s, so I reward him with a smile and right there on the spot I commit myself to a lifelong friendship with him.

  Fighting back tears, I don’t yet know why I am crying but I sense that the reason, when it eventually hits me, will knock me off my feet, I glance down at the photograph in my hands, too terrified to turn it over and look at it.

  The voices. Oh my God the voices. They won’t go away.

  ‘I want my wife back, that’s all.’ I hear the voice of the boy I have known all my life, overwrought and filled with emotion. ‘What happened to the girl I married?’

  Chapter 76

  Unable to stand it any longer, I turn the photograph over and what I see does indeed bring me to my knees. At the same time, the music comes to an abrupt halt, needle scratching on vinyl, and the room fills with ghostly white noise.

  The white lace dress. Smiling faces. Confetti in our hair. It is a picture of Daniel and I on our wedding day. We look extremely happy. The red brick walls of Thornhaugh loom menacingly in the background but it makes sense that I would be married from there. Tracing Daniel’s face with my finger, my tears spill onto the photograph, blurring both our faces. I cannot wipe them away quickly enough. I think I am about to die from shock, but I clench my eyes together and force myself to go back to that day.

  Confetti everywhere, even on our eyelids, but we don’t notice or care. We only have eyes, sparkling ones at that, for each other. Daniel’s eyes are blue, like my beloved ocean, and I intend to swim in them every day for the rest of my life. He can’t take his eyes off me. Knowing this makes me tingle all over. I can’t wait for him to unzip me out of my beautiful wedding dress. Rather stupidly, I left the price tag on and it itches like mad.

  As we kiss on the grand staircase, a chorus of cheers go up. All our friends and family are here. Not one of them made it through the ceremony with a dry eye. Daniel’s mother, wearing a hideous purple number, stands next to Bob Black who fidgets in a shirt and tie. Every time he looks at me, he is reminded of my mother. This is why he acts oddly around me. The poor man always loved her, even after she married my father, but she never looked twice at him. He wasn’t the only one. Andrew Muxlow was another of her admirers, but his obsession drove him mad. They say he ended up in Thornhaugh too. As we come down the staircase, I search the upturned faces of our wedding party, hoping to see my father.

  I would recognise the pale blue suit he is wearing anywhere, having helped him choose it. A few hours ago, when I was still Natalie Powers, not Natalie Harper as I am now, I pinned that pink buttonhole to his jacket. As usual, he stands at the back, not wanting to draw attention to himself. But he can’t disguise the look of pride on his face.

  When Daniel first asked for my hand in marriage, my father cried tears of joy. Having Daniel for a son-in-law means the world to him. Not only does Daniel know the butchery trade inside and out, they get along famously too. My father is more relaxed, knowing I will be taken care of in his absence. I was always such a worry to him. It also pleases him that he has somebody to leave the business to. Back then, there was never much chance of me becoming a butcher. Back then, we did not know that my father wouldn’t survive another year.

  My legs are curled under me as I sit on the floor, cradling the photograph in my arms as if it were a child. I wish, desperately, that I was a child again, without responsibility or any past to speak of. I would give anything to have my father with me. A girl needs her daddy. Rocking myself backwards and forwards, I try not to think of his last days. But the memories keep on coming and there is nothing I can do to stop them.

  Surrounded by a labyrinth of tubes and wiring attached to monitors, my father lies in a comatose state in a private hospital room. His condition is weak, critical. Although he has an oxygen mask strapped to his face, his breathing is laboured. I want to loosen the elastic strap around his face, which has left a deep red mark, but we have been told not to interfere. We are only allowed to hold his hand. So, we sit either side of the bed, Daniel, and I, each clinging on to a lifeless hand, hoping for a miracle.

  My father’s eyes are closed but his mouth is open. I find out for the first time that he has a black filling at the back of his mouth. I do not know why this should fascinate me, but it does. He wears a blue gown with tiny flowers on it and I badly want to slap the nurse who put it on him. I am glad he cannot see it, doesn’t know. It would offend his masculinity.

  My father’s swollen legs gape through the gown. They are yellow and blue. His jaundiced skin is almost the same colour as the vase of daffodils on the bedside table. Whenever a nurse comes into the room to shine a torch in his eyes, I notice that they are yellow too. The blue of Little Downey has already left his body.

  ‘And father? When did he die?’ I hear myself asking Daniel.

  ‘Must be three years ago now. Liver disease.’

  I remember that Daniel hadn’t been able to speak of my father’s passing without showing emotion for the man he loved as if he were his own father.

  Too hard. Too cruel. Too unforgiving. My father didn’t deserve to suffer as he did. But you do, Natalie. The thought comes from nowhere, poking me with its destructive finger. Sitting up suddenly, no slouching, Natalie, as if a bolt of lightning had passed through me, I finally get to know the person I am. She has been hiding for a very long time.

  The cockerel is too plump for its own good. I have seen it strutting around outside, stealing all the corn and bossing the others about. Because he is hopping mad most of the time, we call him Fury. His eyes are blood orange with a small black dot in each of them. The dots are furious with me, I can tell, because until now, nobody has got close enough to handle him. Not my father, nor Daniel either. I am the first to manage it. He clucks wildly and tries to peck me as I swing him upside down by the legs.

  Placing him on the wooden block, which is stained dark red from years of use, I press down on his brown and white body, so he does not flap around too much. His head twists this way and that, but as the shadow of the axe looms, he freezes in terror. As if he knows.

  Day changes to night and I am kneeling in the roadside. The pickup truck is parked a few feet away and the driver’s door swings open. There is no one else around, so I am not sure how I got here. I don’t drive, do I? Or do I? I am bent over an injured dog. It is a tall scruffy lurcher type. Looks as if a car has hit it. Its soft brown eyes appeal to me for help but the rest of its body twitches uncontrollably. When I place my hands on the dog’s jaw and skull, it whines, as if it thinks it is being petted one last time. Then, with a quick skilful movement, I break its neck—forcing its head up and at an angle, not sideways like in the movies. That doesn’t work at all. I know it is done when the dog’s head flops into my lap.

  ‘I ain’t afraid of nothing or nobody, ’cept you and your madness.’ My father bawled those condemning words at me on more than one occasion. Now, I understand why. Glancing down at the photograph, I wonder where all the tears have gone. I see my reflection in the glass, yet I do not recognise myself. White face. Black eyes. Long black tangled hair. I could be my mother. I could be Merry.

  ‘Is this me?’ I whimper. ‘Is this who I am?’

  Dr Moses was right when he said I was like a ghost, flitting in and out of people’s lives, barely there at any one time. Mostly, I have been absent, spending long periods at Thornhaugh, constantly reliving the same nightmares until they felt like my reality and growing ever distrustful of my family. Everybody I knew insisted that my mother was dead, but I refused to accept this. By imagining she was still alive, I was able to convin
ce myself that I was not insane—they were. Is that why I stopped taking my medication, to prove a point? Even though I had been warned coming off it could increase my psychotic imaginings. Some things remain true though. The cannibalism for one thing. As my father explained, the village has been dependent on human meat since before the war. Generation to generation has kept this craving going. This dependency contributed to everybody’s craziness in Little Downey. We are socially awkward for a reason.

  Despite all I have learnt about myself, I feel an overwhelming sense of relief that I did not kill my mother, that my father died surrounded by people he loved, not by a bolt gun on his own property. I thank God too that Merry was not turned into a piece of meat because the brother and sister never existed outside my imagination. Merry was everything I wanted to be. I see that now. As for Jed, I realise I used him to help fuel my fantasies. He was my partner in crime. But even he betrayed me in the end. ‘Yours is the biggest secret of all,’ he had warned me. And he was right.

  The man in the kitchen is not Jed. Just some poor unfortunate stranger who made the fatal mistake of knocking on our door. Shouldn’t the severe gloomy cliff edge have kept him away? Gradually, it dawns on me that everything Daniel ever told me was true. He was never a threat to me or Darkly – I was my own enemy all along.

  That must mean that Darkly is mine too. Of course, she is. All that hair. Those dark black eyes, so like my own and my mother’s before me. Whatever made me think they were blue? But what about the birthmark? Quickly, I pull down my top, so I can look over my shoulder at the skin there. Sure enough, the same strawberry pink birthmark that both my children have inherited is there for anyone to see. My mother had the same mark too, I remember.

  Although I am pleased to discover that Darkly is my own, I do not forget the horrible truth, which is lurking around the corner, waiting to mow me down.

  Daniel. Daniel. Daniel.

  The love of my life. How could I have known? How could I have not known?

  ‘It’s not my fault.’ I start crying again, uncontrollably this time. Anger is building inside me. Soon it will erupt. ‘Not my fault.’ I shake my head wildly. ‘They have made me like this. Turned me into one of them.’

  LIAR.

  I look down to see Daniel’s face smiling up at me from the picture frame. I close my eyes, not wanting to see, not wanting to know.

  COWARD.

  At this, my eyes flash open. I am a Powers and we are not cowards. Hurling the photograph against the wall, where it shatters, I make up my mind never to look at it again. I feel my face contorting with pain and horror. This level of sickening self-awareness will drive me mad, insane. I will never be able to escape it.

  ‘Oh God, what have I done?’

  Somebody is screaming. A raw tormented howl of anguish. I clasp my hands over my ears, unable to bear it. Shut up. Stop, please. I drive my thumbnail into one of the blue veins on my wrist, until the pain is excruciating.

  Still, the screaming goes on.

  ‘I am somebody’s wife. Somebody’s mother.’

  The person who is screaming is me.

  Little Downey Beach

  Darkly

  Gulls scream and take to the sky when they see Darkly plodding dejectedly along the beach, dragging her bare feet in the sand. Choosing not to walk in a straight line, she zigzags, leaving behind an unpredictable pattern of child-size footprints. Gazing up at the gulls, as they circle over the house by the sea, she wonders if they know. If they sense anything. But then, turning her attention back to the ocean that she loves, she realises the tide, which has been coming in this last hour, has changed its mind, and is pulling away from the cliff edge as if it knows her family’s terrible secrets and cannot bear to go any closer.

  The house by the sea, towering above the cliff top, remains in creepy darkness. She is tired, oh so tired, and hungry too. Having already skipped lunch and dinner, her stomach constantly rumbles. As soon as she has eaten, if she ever gets to eat, she will go straight to bed and forget this day ever happened. She’s getting good at that. She is a natural storyteller. Everyone says so. Everyone except her mother, that is.

  As the tide recedes, it leaves behind a trail of bones in the sand. Unsurprised by them, Darkly picks one up and scoots it into the sea. It lands with a silly plop that makes her giggle. Picking up another larger bone, shaped rather like a human arm, she pretends it is a sword and play fights with an imaginary foe. But as soon as she sees a dim light appear in one of the downstairs windows, she drops the bone and races towards home. It is the sign she has been waiting for. Dinnertime at last.

  Epilogue

  Today

  You wake up in a strange place surrounded by strange people. You know they are strange because they all have the same icy blue eyes and blank expressions. You have no idea where you are, or who you are even. But wait, you remember something. Something from before.

  Too late. The fleeting memory is gone. Much as you try, you cannot get it back again. So, you focus on what is going on around you instead. There is a scrape of metal. Hiss of plastic. You are surrounded by whispers, faraway at first, then close, then distant again. Your eyes feel heavy, but the stench of stale urine and bleached hallways keeps you awake. Through a crack in the door, you catch a glimpse of an ornate chandelier and a majestic oak staircase.

  A cold draught wraps itself around you, like the arms of someone you have never met, and in the distance, you hear the flush of a toilet, the hum of a radio—ordinary sounds that you once took for granted. Somewhere out there, in the real world, beyond the stained-glass windows, mothers are pushing babies in prams, people are jogging, catching a train or sending text messages. A man is helping a woman change a tyre on her car. An affair is going on in a cheap hotel. You wish you were any one of them.

  They are talking. Telling you things you’re supposed to know, but you don’t. Why don’t you remember? And why are you strapped to the bed? Is it because you are a danger to yourself or to others? Why is it so important to them that you remember? More importantly, what if you remember and start doing it again?

  Drip. Splat. Drip.

  You think there must be a tap leaking somewhere, and when you strain your neck as far as it will go, you see water dripping from a faulty drink dispenser. You are so thirsty, you would give anything for a glass of it right now. Why did you not notice how dry your throat was? You then realise there are plenty of other things you haven’t noticed until now. A drip attached to your right arm is one of them. Your skin looks wrinkled and old against the needle taped to your hand, as if it doesn’t belong to you. Knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it, you obsessively follow the movement of whatever nasty substance is inside the IV bag as it slowly invades your veins.

  A flurry of movement sends waves of perfumed air your way. There is a shuffle of sensible shoes. A gleaming of white teeth. You wonder what is going on. But then, in he comes, and you realise his appearance is not a surprise. Secretly, you have been expecting this moment. You thought you were so clever guessing the ending, didn’t you? It wasn’t what you hoped for, but in a way kind of expected. The clues were there all along.

  Except for the eyes, he is just as described. Everything you imagined and more. Tall and handsome in a light grey suit, there is a sparkle of cufflink at his slender wrist and the colour of his hair matches his suit. His eyes though are not grey at all. You were misinformed about them. They are as blue as an ocean on the clearest coldest day. There is such a calming quality to them that you begin to fear that you are about to be hypnotised against your will.

  ‘There you are. I suspect you’re feeling tired, a little confused even?’

  It feels strange having Dr Moses smiling down on you. Before you’ve even had chance to get over this fact, he’s sitting on the edge of your bed, acting as if you and he are the best of friends. A nurse hovers in the background smiling in a way that is meant to reassure. She fails miserably. Busily, she counts out coloured pills in her hand and you w
onder if they are for you. Correction. You know they are for you.

  ‘You’ve got to forget everything you think you know. Subconscious suggestion, that’s all it is.’ Dr Moses removes a lid from a tray on your lap that you didn’t even know was there.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He pats your hand in a fatherly fashion. You don’t want it to stop, but it does, rather too quickly for your liking. ‘We’ll soon have you on your feet again.’

  You almost believe him. You want to believe him. You feel as if you have known him a very long time. His ways are familiar to you. As is this building, now you come to think of it. Realising that something is expected of you, you look down on an unappetising plate of overcooked sausages, lumpy mash and peas, and fight off a feeling of nausea. When you glance back up, at Dr Moses’ face, there is a smile waiting there for you and his blue eyes are full of encouragement. Little Downey eyes.

  ‘Eat up,’ he instructs. ‘And then perhaps you’d like to go home.’

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