The Butchers' Blessing Read online

  Eventually Fionn spotted him amidst the crowd, a blue fleece zipped right up to the throat. “Martin, ya messer!” The ginger shag of hair had grown a bit long, though it seemed to be surviving the grey.

  Martin took his time with his saunter. In the distance, the bell rang again as if the two men were squaring up for a box. Martin finally arrived: “Are we well, Mr. McCready?”

  “Surviving, sure.”

  “Something else, this place, eh?”

  “Nay bad, I have to say. Nay bad at all.”

  The men looked at one another. No doubt Martin would have heard about Eileen’s health, so it was only polite that the enquiries would follow next. But Martin closed his lips and looked away as if he were already bored. Fionn rolled his shoulders. Silly buggers, is it so?

  But whatever dignity he would have to forgo he was willing now to forgo. “Martin, I wanted to ask about that place in Dublin. The one you took your missis, like.” Fionn felt clumsy, but he pushed on nonetheless. “I’m sure it cost a bob or two, it’s just . . . Even though they got the tumour, the doctors warned Eileen it’s very likely to come back, so I’m just—”

  “Da, I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” When Fahey’s youngest appeared by his side he looked every ginger inch his father’s boy. He took no interest in Fionn or the pane he was after smashing up against. “Did you hear the rumour?” he panted. “Apparently the Bull’s just brokered a deadly deal with Dubai. Apparently his mate the Taoiseach managed to pull him a load of strings.” The boy got the news out, then started to cough. Fionn caught the strags of asthma on his lungs. He wondered what the woman in Carrickmacross would make of that. There were days Ireland felt Modern and days she felt anything but.

  Martin didn’t heed his son just yet, still piecing together the meaning of Fionn’s half-formed plea. The name of the clinic would suffice; a ballpark figure to see if it was even feasible. And never mind Fionn’s reputation or his bad phase with the drink—he hadn’t touched the stuff in years—whereas a woman was sick, so really wasn’t that all that mattered? Wasn’t it clear he was trying to start a new phase altogether?

  “Da, would you hurry?”

  When Martin smiled, he revealed a gap in his gum where one of his incisors should have been. “Coming, Domhnall.” He placed his hand on his son’s shoulder, a look of hearty, shameless pride. He leaned into Fionn’s ear and whispered the number once and only once, then added loud enough for anyone to hear: “Bet you’re wishing you hadn’t scaled things down after all, eh?”

  Fionn crossed the car park with his hands balled tight. He could never afford the figure Martin Fahey had gloated in his ear; could barely resist the temptation to knock out another one of Martin Fahey’s teeth. But even in his fury, Fionn knew it wouldn’t be worth it—better not to give them the satisfaction. He would go from unpopular to an outcast altogether.

  He spotted his 4×4 a mile off, the paint scratched and splattered with mud. Whereas the rest of the car-park rows sat clean and bright, new models with names he’d barely heard of, each with a number plate that had been registered this very year.

  “Fionn?”

  His own name made him freeze, though his pulse pumped faster. His first instinct was that someone had come to give him a hiding; to let him know he wasn’t welcome here.

  We’ve told you before, we don’t sell to the McCready clan.

  We thought you had retired, you scabby prick?

  He supposed it was the one thing he could thank his daddy for—he had always had a decent nose for violence.

  He forced himself to turn around. There were three of them in total, hands in their pockets to give the casual impression. Mossy McGrath and Briain Ní Ghríofa stood together. Fionn didn’t recognise the third lad, only noticed a badger streak running through his hair.

  “Fergus Hynes.” The stranger stepped forward. “A first cousin of Mossy’s. I wondered if I could have little word.”

  Fionn felt his sweat soaking his shirt down into his jocks, his muscles tightening in readiness. He wouldn’t go down easily. He promised himself that at least.

  “Tell me, Fionn.” Fergus wore a belt around his jeans that had an awful shiny buckle. “I take it you have heard of a lad called Eoin Goldsmith?”

  Fionn cocked his head. He had been caught off guard again, this time by the simplicity of the question. He tried to understand what was going on; tried to trace any sort of possible link.

  Because there wasn’t a man in the country who wasn’t familiar with the Bull or the empire he had built. He was the brains of the meat industry—from processing plants to development plans; from offal and equipment to cattle feed. He had created employment and launched Ireland on to the international stage—his success story would be told for generations to come. Along the way, a couple of journalists had tried to make accusations; to spread certain reports about foul play. But mostly the stories had gone away—they were nothing but stupid rumours; nothing but begrudgers trying to take the mighty down.

  “Well, you see,” Fergus continued, “the Bull has put me in charge of a wee project you might be able to assist with. We’re looking for someone with a knowledge such as your own.”

  It was only now Fionn started to realise that maybe it wasn’t bruises the men were after. He felt the fear slink out of him like a ghost. Instead they needed something else—something to do with the border; a “business operation.” Beef from the North that couldn’t be sold on account of the recent British ban. Nothing dodgy, they assured, but it would just be useful to have someone with a certain kind of expertise if they were thinking to transport the stuff south.

  “Ah, but them cattle smugglings were a fair time ago,” Fionn reminded them, out of modesty and caution both. “I haven’t been up that way in yonks.”

  But their flattery didn’t stop, nor their nonchalance. It would just be a couple of runs—barely a commitment if he thought about it, really.

  “Of course, Goldsmith would provide a decent fee for your trouble.” It was Mossy who delivered the clincher. “Serious bob, like, assuming your discretion. He could even give you half in advance if you need?”

  This time Fionn lingered on the sound of “need.” They must have overheard him with Martin Fahey; must have caught just how extortionate the Dublin clinic really was.

  But the lads said no more before they left—no further details; no indication about the where or the when of it all. And no mention either of Fionn’s unpopularity—his stingy reputation or messy years with the booze. It seemed this was just men; this was just beef, simple as that.

  This was just a line that needed to be crossed.

  Back home, Fionn unwound the twine on the gate and pulled the 4×4 into the yard. He killed the engine, but he wasn’t ready to move just yet. He glanced at Eileen’s Fiesta. Her license had been revoked on account of the risk of seizures. Of all the side effects, he knew she despised that one the most.

  When he had made his decision, Fionn opened the door and Blackfoot came barking out. He had named her in a moment of daftness. It was to do with some old superstition that said if your dog was called that, your herd would be safe from disease. Fionn scratched behind her ear in greeting. First he would give the girls their latest dose for the fluke, then he would head upstairs and change Eileen’s sheets. He would promise her everything was going to be OK.

  •

  The call came a week later while he and Eileen were watching one of her old black-and-white films before bed. Some Like It Hot. It was one of her favourites—she knew all the lines by heart; could give the American accent a decent lash.

  “Might be Faela for Davey,” she drawled as the phone started ringing, but when Fionn went to the kitchen and picked up the receiver, it wasn’t his son’s girlfriend at the end of the line. Instead, the voice was male and unfamiliar. It told Fionn nothing except the time and place he was to be waiting. It said he would know the date in question because on that morning, the first half of his payment would arrive throu
gh the letterbox.

  Fionn started to ask how they knew his address, but the call was already dead in his hand. He stared at the phone, then looked up and found his son standing in the doorway. “Jesus, lad, you put the heart crossways on me!”

  Davey hovered a moment longer before turning. Fionn wondered how much he had overheard. He felt a flicker of panic, but then he had a different idea. He could invite Davey along on the job; could come to some kind of arrangement with Fergus Hynes. Because maybe this could be a chance to put things right between them—if it had worked for him and his own daddy, God knows it could work for them. Fionn jogged out to the hallway and glanced up the stairs where Davey was just heading back into his room. “Son, can I have a word?”

  The door slammed instantly. Fionn waited, listening in case it was opened again. But of course, even after the apologies and the sobriety, he knew Davey had never forgiven him for the awful things he had done. Fionn sighed. He heard Marilyn Monroe and then he heard his wife’s laugh. He returned to the living room.

  “No matter how close I look,” she said when he appeared, though her eyes didn’t leave the screen, “I still can’t tell she’s pregnant. She lost it after six weeks, you know? Tried to kill herself again. Three times Arthur Miller had to save her life.”

  Fionn collapsed into the armchair. He knew the time and the place. Now all he had to do was sit and wait.

  •

  Three nights later and, even inside the van, the cold night air was knives against their necks. Fergus Hynes sat silent behind the frozen wheel, chewing his fingers to hangnail shreds. The pair of them scoured the view. Mossy and Briain were parked up in their own battered-looking van next to them, but other than that the world was nothing but shadow.

  As far as Fionn could remember, this was one of the routes that had been blockaded during the worst of the Troubles, barriers and spikes in the middle of the road to stop anyone from trying to get across. Until last year, when the border-buster JCBs began to remove it all—the government had shut the checkpoints too—making way for cars; making way, it seemed, for peace.

  Fionn checked his watch, the cheapo plastic kind with the squeezy light. It was meant for children, not for jaded smallholders breaking laws in the depths of no man’s land. But it had always been a handy yoke for the smuggling operations back in the day—another thing about tonight that filled Fionn with old border memories. And yet, technically the scheme this time was the opposite way around—the olden days were about moving cattle north to sell at a higher price. Whereas here they were bringing beef south; taking down all the perfect wee steaks that had been crossed off for an embargo an ocean away.

  As promised, he had found a brown envelope containing a wodge of cash on the doormat this morning. He had counted it twice. It was only the tip-and-a-bit of the iceberg, but he told himself it was a start.

  “Right, you stay here.”

  Fergus’s growl made Fionn jump, then squint out the window where he caught the skulk of black on black. To his left, the others gave him a hasty nod; a moon-glint of nerves. Fionn made the sign of the cross. Fergus Hynes approached the truck on foot and the driver hopped down in a leather jacket and a pair of loafers as if they were off to the pub, not out in the freezing cold shifting crates of contraband. They conferred until Fergus gave the signal and Fionn shimmied into the driver’s seat. His hands were shaking as he turned the key, but the engine soon cricketed to life. The two vans reversed to the arse of the refrigerated truck, the doors laid open and awaiting. Fionn jumped out and saw the beef piled up. It would be a serious job to get it all across. But Briain was clearly here for his muscle, so he wasted no time in leaping up and jostling the first pallet to the edge. “Fionn, if you catch,” he said, “Mossy can stamp and load. Let’s make this quick.” He proved his point with the first one tossed already out.

  Fionn caught it just in time, taking a bit of a bruise, then paused for a moment to inspect the contents. Each cut of meat lay cellophaned in its carton with a simple sticker on the front inscribed with the date and weight.

  Fionn stared at the beef; the Northern Irish beef. The British beef that had officially been banned. He passed it over, a little clumsy, just as Mossy produced a rubber stamp from his Umbro bag. Next Mossy dipped the stamp into a pad of ink and bashed it down on each label, quickly like he had done the whole thing before. Fionn watched as ink stains began to bloom on Mossy’s fingertips, blue rims around the nails that would be a bugger to clean. And for the first time all night, Fionn smiled, just as the next crate arrived in his arms ready to be turned into something else.

  100%, the stamp said, no hint of doubt; no questions or anxieties when it made its way to the southern warehouses and overseas on to the supermarket shelves. No, just this:

  100% Irish Beef.

  Celtic Boom beef!

  Fionn decided he was warming to the phrase after all.

  On the drive back, he dozed a little. He had assumed they would be stashing their haul at one of the Bull’s swanky facilities, but when he woke he saw they were turning down a narrow lane and pulling up by a dilapidated shed.

  Inside the old cold store, the tiles were ruined with cracks. Half the hooks from the ceiling were blunt with rust. Fionn noticed the temperature. “Is it just me, or is it warmer in here than it is outside?”

  And the last thing Fionn noticed was a portrait that had been mounted on the left-hand wall, Our Blessed Lady garbed in her traditional blue. This time he didn’t need to say a thing.

  “Don’t look surprised.” Fergus winked. “The Bull is a very religious man.”

  Shortly after they locked up, they drove past O’Connell’s pub where Fergus said he and the lads would be celebrating later. “You should come,” he said. “Toast to all our hard work. I’m sure the others wouldn’t mind.”

  Fionn was touched by the invitation, even if he had to decline. He hadn’t frequented the pub in almost three years. His logic was that, sober, he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  Once he was home, Fionn kicked off his wellies. Even Blackfoot was fast asleep. He made his way up the stairs, past Davey’s room, then took a breath as he reached the next door and pushed. Eileen’s body was so small a lump beneath the duvet he might have mistaken it for the feathers themselves. They used to keep hens—every morning she would cup the eggs warm in her hands and hold them out like a sacrament. As Fionn watched her now, he felt the exhaustion deep in his bones—from the heavy lifting of the night, but also from the memory of everything else that he had done. Even three painful years on, he still couldn’t quite get over the horror of his crime. Not that he could actually remember a thing of the incident—oh no, the quantity of drink had made very sure of that. But he could remember the morning after—the mess of her lip and the swell of her jaw; the blood in her startled eyes where the love used to be but could surely never be again. To this day, Fionn didn’t understand how he had let it go so far; couldn’t pinpoint the moment he had turned into the father he’d so despised.

  Carefully now, he sat down on the edge of the bed. His face contorted as he removed his socks. Outside, the first shreds of morning fell across the giant beech where a coil of rope hung down from a branch. Fionn traced the length of it with his eyes all the way to the end where it should have held a tyre or maybe a swing, but when he thought back to his childhood, he couldn’t remember it ever holding a thing.

  For all his exhaustion, though, for all his shame, Fionn knew this morning was about looking forward, not back. Because what if this was a chance, finally, to make amends? To eliminate that wretched tumour for good? Very slowly, he lifted the duvet and slid his way beneath. He moved an inch closer to his sleeping wife. He breathed in her scent, the heat off her back, wanting to touch, but not quite trusting himself to.

  When he opened his eyes, he rolled on to his left only to discover his shoulders were in knots and that Eileen was gone. He swallowed. The back of his throat was pure scratch. He would need a rake of honey to stave
off the worst of last night’s chill. He wondered what hour it was, then heard the footsteps and saw Eileen appear, fully dressed.

  “Well, there’s a sight for sore eyes!” She hugged a pile of fresh laundry to the bones of her chest. “The dead arose and appeared to many.”

  “Eileen, you shouldn’t—” Fionn coughed before he went again. “Leave that, would you? Davey can—”

  “Davey has enough to be getting on with at the moment.” Eileen opened the drawer and slammed it a little too hard. “I’m fine.”

  He swallowed again and tried a different tack. “How did you sleep?”

  She yanked the curtains. “Not bad.” But then she stopped where she stood as if something in the view had caught her attention. “Although I had that strange dream again—you remember me telling you? The one about the Butchers?”

  Fionn closed his eyes. Jesus, his shoulders really were fucked.

  Eileen was right—it wasn’t the first time in the last few weeks she had told him about her strange dream. For Fionn, its recurrence—its presence at all—was one of the strongest signs that her brain still wasn’t quite right. He had considered telling the doctors about it, but ultimately he had decided against. It would have required far too much in the way of explanation.

  Because before she got ill, those words hadn’t been uttered between them for almost twenty-five years. The Butchers. Not since the day they were married and she left her old life behind; not since the day she announced she didn’t want to be called Lena any more.

  Fionn stared at her now, her frail body angled away to soak up the morning light. Even through her cardigan, her shoulder blades jutted out. He thought of a milk-dry heifer being led off to the slaughterhouse.