Foreman and Son, Family Butcher

Contributed by Douglas Noble on 19/04/08

Now, Barry Foreman knew it, and didn’t like to talk about it. After all, it was none of his business what went on up there. The belch and billow of the stack wasn’t his concern, not now, not ever. He was the butcher, and he didn’t ever need to go up there.

When they came in, soot eyed and dirty, for sausages and mutton legs, and rabbit and chicken, he could smell it on them. When they were kids, a long time ago, and before the building cast its shadow down over the village, they had teased him for the same thing at school. That smell. On him it had been from helping his father, Foreman Senior, with the deliveries. Late nights with halved pigs and cow heads. His father had laughed at roped sausages around Barry’s neck like a scarf. The next day they had laughed at him too.

He hears the whistle blow three times a day. From his counter, if he cranes his head, he can see them slouch down the hill and back up when the shifts change. He can hear the slow clump of their feet coming down toward him. They line up, shuffling, waiting for him to get to them. Afterward, they shuffle back to their homes and eat whatever it is that they have got. He doesn’t see them afterward, not socially, not in the streets, not at all.

His wife tells him that the children have been feeling down lately. Something to do with the winter sky. He had to admit that it was getting him down too. Eight months now, and the sky was still grey. At the dinner table the children just pick at their food, moving it back and forth on their plate. Barry can’t seem to make them listen.

The whistle blows and the shift changes. They don’t speak about their work as they com into the shop. There’s no gossip about what she said about him or what whoever said they were going to do. There’s just heads down and shuffling feet. He recognises some of them from school, but they never say hello, even those that come in every day.

In the meat locker, in the quiet times between shifts, Barry sometimes sits. After all, it was none of his business what went on up there.