Posted by Menagerie on October 20, 2004 at 20:44:08:
THE TROUBLES
When Mrs. Magoon strode through the streets, the boys didn't just stand aside; they parted, like Moses and the waves. Tall, broad of shoulders and hips, her square-toes shoes clomp-clomping along the cobbled streets, when she approached they would fall away, as if they feared being trampled underfoot. Smiling, tipping their felt caps, bowing a bit--"Good mornin', missus!" the out-of-work louts would cry, and she smiled back. Always smiling, for Mrs. Magoon was quite happy in her world.
She had seven strong sons, the oldest, James, an up-and-coming tradesman. Her husband, Peter, had just been rewarded for a lifetime of dedication by being named Head Foreman at the Foundry, with a handsome increase in pay and four full weeks of vacation. Their house, so crowded as the boys had been growing, now had an extra wing for guests and parties, completed by second son Christopher and his carpentry team only in the last month. And this was particularly fortuitous, for she had decided to celebrate the Twelfth of July in grand style.
One of the do-nothing town boys politely held open the door to Mt. Atkinson's butcher shop, and Mrs. Magoon rewarded him with a warm smile before she sauntered into the grubby, little store. Ham hocks hung like giants' clubs behind the counter; reddish-pink cuts of meat, the bones like the eye of the Cyclops, lay in neat rows beneath the glass. Old Atkinson, eyes twinkling behind his specs, rubbed his hands and beamed. "Well, Gloria! Sure, and it's good to see you here. Some fine fortune for Peter, I understand. Will ye be celebrating, now?"
The smile had become even broader. "Ah, Julian," she said, looking around a bit; some of the boys were peering into the shop, faces pressed against the streaked front window. "We'll be doing the Twelfth up big, this year. Price is no object, and I want the finest young whole roast in your shop!"
Atkinson smirked a bit, scratched his head. "Some fairly large Revolution celebrations in town, this year. Me stock is a bit run down, but I think I've what you need; please, let me assist." The rotund butcher waddled from around his counter and extended a hand; Mrs. Magoon took his arm, and he pushed through the side door, and down a flight of stairs. She watched, patiently, as he pulled a massive keyring from beneath his apron, fresh bloodstains spattered across the old, faint orange ones; Atkinson held the ring a few centimetres from his nose, flicked through the keys one at a time, and finally discovered the one to undo the padlock heading into his Storage room.
With a bit of a haughty air, Mrs. Magoon surveyed the room. Four young girls, each naked as Cupid, huddled on the straw-covered floor; they were chained by their necks to iron rings set in the wall, and when they saw Mrs. Magoon, they sent up a collective wail like the banshees on the eve of death, and shrunk away as if to hide themselves from her sight. The ever-present smile now tight and her eyes hard, Mrs. Magoon strolled back and forth before the maidens, eyeing the curves of their flesh and padding of their rumps. Finally, she stopped before a blue-eyed miss, a wonderfully full-bodied colleen with a rosy sheen to her skin and a magnificent, plush bosom. The girl looked up, trembled, and bit her lip.
The older woman caught her breath; the child was absolutely darling. A chill, commanding tone set into her voice. "Your name," she inquired, and added, "little one?"
The girl's voice broke; eyes still locked on her, she stuttered, "Brandy, ma'am," a lilting voice that mixed the sweet sound of the auld sod with the grime of the ghetto, and Mrs. Magoon's eyes crinkled, picturing the youngster on her family table as they sang the old songs on the Twelfth.
Atkinson broke in. "A schoolgirl, she is, from St. Kitts," he said. "Me men picked her up only a couple days back. Want me to do her, or you planning to fix her up yourself?"
The girl gasped; Mrs. Magoon briefly turned her eyes back to the butcher. "Julian, this will be a family affair," she said, a dreamy, slow smile on her face. "Of course, we'll take her alive." She turned from the hapless, weeping lass and pulled a great roll of bills from a cloth purse. "One, two, three," she counted off, "and here's twenty, for keeping her for me. I want her by six!"
"I'll fetch the lorry," grinned the butcher. "Leave it to me, and your young roaster is as good as delivered!" And the wails were set off again, the young, doomed girls crying as one. All but Brandy, who crouched in her space, as frozen as January on Slieve Donard.
She had always stayed away from Ballymena, even away from the edge of Magherafelt. The girls would huddle together in their neat, plaid skirts and navy blazers at St. Kitts and tell stories, sinister stories of young Catholic schoolgirls spirited away by the Ballymena boys, rough gangs, smirks on their faces and wooden clubs in their hands. She knew Mama's younger sister had disappeared one day, never heard from again, the officious-looking constable patiently explaining to the grim-faced family that they were doing all they could, it was a slow go, they'd get back when they knew more...Mama's eyes were wet but her face was still. They've got her, she said, going to make a pie of her. Nobody paid Mama no mind, and the constable said they'd keep looking in the River Bann.
But Mama knew. The Prods liked nothing better than to catch a young girl, take her home and make a feast of her. They'd celebrate William III's victory three centuries before with a lush, Irish maiden served on a wooden plank, roasted up like a pig and served with dulce and potatoes and turnips, her skin a deep red and shimmering like dew on grass. And they'd take their knives to her and cut her up, placing the meat on a big platter and devouring every bit of her, right down to the poor girl's cruibins, the men gnawing greedily upon her dainty feet. That was what had happened to Mama's little sis, and she warned Brandy to stay away from Ballymena, not even the edge of Magherafelt.
But Brandy wasn't watching, and the boys were just like Mama said, in knickers and felt caps and grinning at her, her all tied up in the lorry. And they surely weren't shy about peeking up the plaid skirt, then peeling it off and fondling her through her cotton drawers, and then shredding them and leaving her bare naked there. The boys fumbled with their trousers and took turns piling on; it hurt so, Brandy had never been with a boy, and she felt them inside her, hot and wet. They giggled as they did her, finishing up as the truck slowly rolled through the streets of Ballymena and came to rest in an alley behind a store.
The fat old man with the bloody apron had rubbed his hands as he looked her all over. "Cor!" he proclaimed; "you've a right pretty one, plenty of meat on that one," and he directed the boys to finish undressing Brandy and put her in the back. There were other girls from Magherafelt, too, all bare, all chained by the neck. Some had been there a week, some two. All told her they'd come for her soon, as they’d come for all of them. Their bloody celebration was coming, the Glorious Twelfth. Then they came and took redheaded Clare away, and then young Maura, all gone to the fiends who would cook the young girls and have them for supper. And then came the beaming, gray eyed, sturdy-bodied woman who gave commands like an Army General, and Brandy soon found herself bound hand and foot, deposited in the back of the lorry and carted away.
The boys had their way with her again, this time rougher, with slaps across the face and punches into Brandy's full thighs and soft belly. The lady seemed not even to notice Brandy's gasping for breath as they carried her through the neat, tiny house and down to the cellar, cool and damp, sacks of potatoes and onions leaning against a wall, dry sausage hanging from a hook in the ceiling. The boys simpered like children as the lady gave them each a pound; they scrambled over each other as they headed off, and the woman turned and examined Brandy intently.
The girl was barely five feet tall, Mrs. Magoon saw; she was not overweight, but had a ripeness to her body, a nubile sauciness which suggested plump, pleasing flesh beneath the ruddy skin. Her hips were wide and her breasts proud; had she not been procured for my kitchen, Mrs. Magoon thought disdainfully, she'd undoubtedly have spent the next twenty years churning out babies and adding to the overpopulation of Magherafelt. She'll be better off in my oven. "You'll stay here for the next few days," she sternly told the girl, who stared at her wide-eyed, "until it's time for my party," and Brandy's eyes remained fixed on her as the heavy shoes clomp-clomped up the stairs and the key turned in the lock. The smile had never left the woman’s face.
Christopher was first home; the crew had just been paid, and he’d gone and purchased a fine bouquet for his mum. Mrs. Magoon held the delicate violets and pansies to her face, her eyes closed as she took in the fragrances; the hulking man rambled about the kitchen, fetching himself a sandwich and a pint. “I went to see Mr. Atkinson today,” she said, eyes still closed. “We’ve a fine roaster in the cellar for the Twelfth. You shall make it, shan’t you?”
The lad, all of twenty-four and built like a bull from years of hoisting beams and sacks of cement, practically dropped the bottle. “Mum!” he cried out. “We’re roasting a Pape girl for the Glorious Twelfth? Why, whatever possessed you?”
Mrs. Magoon had placed the flowers in a vase, and was closing cupboards and cleaning up crumbs in the wake of her son’s attack on her kitchen. “Your father,” she said. “His back is stooped and bent. I fear his promotion has come too late; he needs the chance to celebrate as they do in Belfast, and we’ve now the wherewithal to do it. Besides,” as she swept a hand toward Christopher’s recent construction, “we’ve now the space for it.”
The new wing would easily fit twenty, and the crew had constructed a large, wood-fired oven in the wall; a good two metres in length and one high, it was designed for Mrs. Magoon’s Easter and New Year's baking frenzies, pies and breads and other delicacies to be handed out to her sons, friends and neighbors. “Never dreamed there’d be a girl roasting in there,” Christopher muttered. “I must see to this.” And the brute stomped through the door leading to the cellar; his mother watched him go. Smiling.
Young Brandy was propped on her knees, the man twice her size stood before her with a grip like a steel band upon her shoulder. His thing was in her mouth, gagging her; every time she tried to retch, he would push it in still further. “Easy, there, Missy,” blurted the huge man. “We’ll not have this opportunity too many times; let’s enjoy, shall we?” And the naked young girl complied, her mouth wetly sucking on the giant’s manhood, as he fondly examined her, the soft, tapered back, the buttocks plump as pink bladders. “When my mother gets done with you,” he gloated, “I won’t need no knife; I’ll be able to tear your meat from the bone!” The thought, and the girl, sent his sauce rolling in waves down Brandy’s throat.
Others of Mrs. Magoon's sons would use Brandy in coming days, in this way and others. The younger would torment her with their cudgeons, laughing in sheer delight as she toppled from their blows, plunging the lead-weighted batons into her wee openings and gloating as they were stretched wider. "Mum will be able to stuff you better," they jeered, as the girl gasped with the billies deep within her. James' wife forebade him from having the girl, but that didn't stop the tradesman from roughing her up, harshly squeezing her soft shoulders and thighs and remarking how nicely she'd roast up in the big oven his brother built for Mum.
Julian was different. The middle son had been the only to go to University, taking the bus every day up to Coleraine, where he studied political affairs. He was a sharp one, curly, sandy hair bushing up over a scowling, ferret face, continuously brooding. The family was proud of its Orange roots but had paid politics no mind, but Julius was one to meet late into the night with friends in the pub, pore over his books, spout off about local affairs. Mrs. Magoon was so proud of him.
He, too, had reacted with astonishment to learn there was a Taig girl in the cellar who was destined to be their feast on the Twelfth. "How perfect!" he declared. "The murdering bastards get one of their own cooked for our holiday feast!"
"Language," said Mrs. Magoon, the smile still spread across her face; she was sifting through her recipe books for a new stuffing, something she hadn't tried. "Sorry," muttered the lad. "If you wish," she went on, pausing to examine an entry with diced apples and potatoes, "you may invite one or two of the friends from your 'club.' The girl is quite full-bodied, and should serve many guests."
So Julian went to see poor Brandy for himself. The poor girl was lying on the floor of the dank, dark cellar, huddled on her side. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her; wide hips, a baby making machine--feh! Full, thick arms and legs; she'd have become a menial. A good thing we got her now, while she's still young and tender--he thought of the time he'd been to Ian's, and Ian produced the breast of a Taig they'd caught and slain in a Londonderry slum, and sauteed the organ over his hot plate. They shared the flesh, pledged their hearts and souls to Ulster, sang the old songs--as he called to mind the taste of the meat, sweet and a little watery, he found himself murmuring, "Triumphant banner wave! O'er Papist ruins, and rebellion's grave!"
The sound startled Brandy; her eyes snapped open, and she rolled over with an effort to see the silhouette of the young man standing a few metres away. His arms were crossed; he looked angry. "Are you--" she asked, and tried again. "Are y' going to rape me?"
There it was, thought Julian, that lower class brogue; she's only fit for food. His glittering eyes fixed on the terrified girl. "I shan't touch you," he sneered, "until Mum's laid you upon our dinner table." He strode across the floor, stood directly over Brandy; she saw the felt cap, the dark pants and jacket--just like the boys who'd taken her from the street in Magherafelt. "You're just a pig," he said evenly. "Just a little Taig piggie, and you'll be killed like a piggie and roasted for our treat." And with that, he turned and left.
"Tell us, Papa" the boys asked, wide-eyed, mouths forming little "o's," "tell us about the Lodge?"
Old Peter Magoon looked a good decade older than his 55 years. Bent over slightly, his hair whitening and wispy, he smiled at the far away memory and sat back in his chair. James' boys were just four and five; they climbed eagerly into the big man's lap.
"I was just starting out," he told them, a giant hand swallowing up each lad's shoulders and neck, "had just become an apprentice at the Foundry, and was invited by me peers to join the Orange Lodge at Ballymena. There was six of us new boys, all from good families." He paused and coughed, a rasping sound, his lungs ruined by 30 years of fumes in the Foundry. "And for us new pledges," the old man went on, drawing the children closer to his face, "you know what they had?"
"No, Papa," they chorused. "Why, it was a Fenian girl," he chuckled. "They had cooked her over the coals, and brought her carcass in for the ceremony. Each of us was allowed a little taste, you'd say, a special part of the little witch." Peter laughed a bit to himself. She'd been a redhaired whore from town, sold herself for a pound or two; the bailiffs of the club had her, then killed her and ran a pole through her and cooked her. He'd been handed a bit of her pube, greasy bit of flesh in an old towel; didn't feel right to tell the kids that.
"What did she taste like?" asked little David, gravely. Old Peter gave out a gravelly chuckle, mussed the boy's hair. "Ye'll find that out yerself," he told his grandson. "Your grammaw will be cooking one up tomorrow." And the two little boys in britches and suspenders went, "Oooh," their faces lit up in a childlike greed as they contemplated a real girl for them to eat...Christopher blew in the door, streaked in sweat and dirt. He and his men had pitched in to build bonfires for the night's revelry. "You'll not be trackin' dirt on yer mother's clean carpet," Peter said, severely.
The big man meekly wiped his shoes and toddled in to greet his nephews; "Alloooooo, little 'uns!" he cried in a high voice, and the kids responded with delight to their uncle. "If you'll be 'visiting' our guest downstairs," Peter went on, "you'd best be getting to it; yer mum wants her up soon for preparation. It'll take a while, she tells me."
Christopher left the googling children and stomped on through to the kitchen; Mrs. Magoon was busy chopping apples. Without looking up, she said, "Mind, you be careful with her. I'll not be putting pieces in my new oven." He guffawed. "Gentle as a lamb," the carpenter promised, and headed down the stairs.
Brandy knew things had changed. Her tormentors, frequent visitors until now, had vanished. She had lost track of time--was this the day? Eighth, ninth, tenth--"Goo' evenin', Miss!" rang out the booming bass voice, and Brandy found herself roughly gripped by the hair, dragged up to her knees. "Yer almost on, darlin'," he said as the girl again reluctantly wrapped her lips around his shaft. "Just a short while, and I'll be cuttin' you up on me plate." As she sucked with long, hard strokes, tears trickling down her cheeks, Brandy thought about it--the hot oven, the knives through her, her bones bared--as again the giant's fluids filled her mouth. He shoved her to the floor, buttoned up and left with a hearty, "Be seein' ya!" and Brandy was again alone, to think.
"They do it to us." Jane's mouth was thin, her jaw set. She turned her head, used a thin, fine hand to flick at her long, wavy tresses. "We do it to them; they do it to us."
"Sure, they do," said James. Their house was just a dozen doors down from his mum and dad; all the Magoons had always lived just short distances away. James was adjusting his sash; they'd be marching through the ruined streets of Ballymena within moments. They'd come right up to the edge of the Taig ghetto, their torches flickering crimson and yellow in the dusk, their signs proclaiming their ancient rights to the streets. There'd be speeches, and cheers, and "The Ould Orange Flute." Then they'd return home to their families for the Glorious Twelfth.
Jane was a pale, slender woman who'd married at barely eighteen; she wore a simple dress. "Mrs. McDougall," she said. "She vanished one night, a week before Christmas. You want to bet she was hanging in some Fenian's locker? They ate her, like Christmas ham."
James donned his beret, winked at his wife in the mirror. "Mrs. McDougall," he said. "She was a right chubby one, just like the one in Mum's cellar. I'd say you've nothing to worry about!" Jane sighed. "I'll be helping your mum with the feast," she said, and left. James smirked to himself, thought about the feel of the naked Catholic girl in the cellar, the plumpness, the softness of her flesh. He felt a spittle coming on to his lips, and a hardness in his nethers, as he imagined the girl's pleading for mercy on her way into the big oven his brother had built.
"Fetch the girl for me, please, Chris?" asked Mrs. Magoon, and Christopher didn't have to asked twice. A few minutes later, he was trudging up the cellar steps, the young thing slung over his shoulder. She looked haggard, Jane thought with satisfaction, faint bruises on her body, her lips chapped and bleeding, as the big man dropped her unceremoniously onto the pinewood table he'd built for his mother; the table was piled with a dozen old, worn towels. Brandy was gasping for breath, her mouth opening and closing silently, her chest heaving. "We'll need to clean her off, first," said Mrs. Magoon, who stuffed a rag into the girl's mouth. "Gracious, I've not done this...well, perhaps once or twice," remembering her parents’ fortieth anniversary. Her ever-pleasant smile grew broader at the recollection.
She and Jane laboriously sponged the filth from five days of captivity off Brandy's body; when they were done, she again shone like sunrise off a pond, ruddy, blue veins showing faintly through the smooth skin. Mute and miserable, Brandy looked into Jane's eyes; she saw hard slits, mean, the iris an iridescent amber. "Now," said Mrs. Magoon, "take her hair."
Brandy's medium-length blonde tresses came off, first the scissors, then the razor. The slim, honed blade made its way down between her legs, Mrs. Magoon taking off the flax-colored fuzz with the sure strokes of a woman who barbered seven boys through adolescence. Brandy sobbed; her body was bereft of hair, smooth, pink. "She looks like a plump, young pig," remarked Jane, with satisfaction, slapping the lass firmly on a rounded thigh; "She'll soon cook like one!" "Time to empty her," said her mother-in-law, and produced a carving knife, its handle dulled from use, the steel long, and steeply tapered. "Hold her, please."
Jane watched as the older woman stuck that long tip into the schoolgirl's belly, then slit upward. Brandy thrashed in her bonds, her shrieks deadened by the rag; her blood ran, soaked into the towels lining the table. With a deft hand, Mrs. Magoon opened the girl's belly; her guts came out in great lengths and were stretched beside her, empty, greasy peach-colored tubes. She'd not had anything to eat in three days.
Brandy's face had grown as pale as a first snow; her eyes were rolling back. Mrs. Magoon filled the girl's hollow belly with the apples and potatoes, heavily spiced. Coarse thread closed her. "Into the pan," proclaimed Mrs. Magoon, cheerfully; Jane struggled with the girl's feet, but the older woman had no problems getting under Brandy's shoulders and depositing her full, fleshy body into the long, rolled steel pan, the one Peter had specially welded for her at the Foundry.
Brandy managed to look up; her breathing was shallow. The indescribable pain of the knife through her belly had given way to a drifting numbness; helpless, she watched as the woman who'd bought her at the market smeared lard all over her, lifting her breasts to get underneath, two fingers working within the hole 'twixt her loins. The fingers came away; she barely felt something light falling upon her, saw the descent. Salt, and pepper; her body was being seasoned, to be cooked. She heard the younger woman, the hard-looking one--"Mum, you needing the onions?" "No," came the cool, clear, musical voice. "This little one will be roasting a long time before the sides go in. Long, and slow."
As the door swung open, the acrid scent of smoldering wood filled Brandy's nostrils. The two women laboriously pushed the pan holding the girl to the opening; smoke was filling Brandy's eyes. A hand pinched her nose, another squeezed open her mouth; out came the rag, and back into the gape went something hard, rough, splintery. Then, she felt herself moving from the cool room into heat, an inferno, surrounding her, drawing from her, smothering her. The block of wood in her mouth choked her; sweat was seeping from her--or was that her juices? Was she cooking already? Brandy faded, the girl who failed to stay safe on the edge of Ballymena, now her brain clouding like dense fog, her limbs still twitching all by themselves, as the heat of the oven come snatch her away...
The men were grand in their sashes; the women wore their church best. The little boys roughhoused, food splashing on the floor as they swung tumblers together excitedly, mimicking the grownups who saluted William, the Battle of the Boyne, the dead Ulster heroes of the past, and tradition. Then the many dug in, old Peter, with a gleam in his eye, carving up the sizzling flesh of the schoolgirl from Magherafelt.
Young Brandy lay on a wooden plank, her once fair skin as brown and glossy as strong tea. The block had come out in her last moments in the oven, and an apple with skin as brown and crinkled as hers filled her mouth. Her belly was laid open, the fruit and spuds heaped high with a thick wooden spoon thrust within; spring onions and turnips had cooked beside her and were piled in Mrs. Magoon's good bowls.
Peter plunged the large fork into the heavy leg, and twin streams of yellow grease darkened the burnt skin. The knife exposed succulent meat as red as rose petals, fat of a glowing ivory. Peter drove the knife to the bone, and his fork came away with a wedge of girlmeat that dripped with fat, the globules shining like stars on a winter night. Loaves of soda bread and a tub of butter were passed around, as large slices of Brandy's fine meat were plopped onto plates and sent around the room.
Christpher chortled, on his platter a round lump of flesh six or seven centimetres thick, swimming in juices. His long arm reached across two family members to snatch the spoon from the girl's belly and draw it back, laden with the gray-yellow mess; the other two were unperturbed, continuing their assault on the unfortunate girl's flesh, but Mrs. Magoon's voice rose above the rattle of plates and the ruckus of feasting. "Manners, Christoper," she demanded. "Yes, Mum," the Goliath responded, meekly, and sawed off a chunk of girl ribmeat no two people could possibly have gotten down, nearly swallowing it whole.
Ian and Anne had joined Julian; they sat off to the side. "We gain our rights one bite at a time, eh, mate?" Ian offered; Anne nodded, carefully chewed and swallowed a bit of meat. "Another Revolution is coming," she predicted. "There'll be Taig pigs on every table." Julian hunched over his plate, eyes darting back and forth, and remembered his confrontation with Brandy. "Pigs, indeed," he said, "and tasting much better!" His friends snickered; they'd have a tale to tell at the pub.
The full of her flesh gone, Brandy's stripped carcass remained on the plank; the men, groaning with the pleasure of the meal, bid farewell and left the women the chore of clearing the mess. As always, it was a pleasurable burden for Mrs. Magoon, who'd been picking up after men for a lifetime; meat was pared from bones and packed away for the cooler, remaining vegetables stored. Jane complimented her mother-in-law on the meal. "The more of them I do," she laughed, "the better I shall get. We'll try something else for the next." A great mesh sack held Brandy's bones, to be burned with the trash out back.
The Glorious Twelfth had ended, and it had played out in grand style for the Magoons. Jane bade farewell and stepped out for the quick walk just a dozen doors down. She made it halfway before a lorry screamed to a stop before her, and rough hands grabbed her and dragged her inside. Her hands and feet bound, a rough gag in her mouth, another over her eyes, and she heard in a thick brogue, "You do it to us. We do it to you." And, laughing, the men rode with the twisting, squirming Prod woman back to Magherafelt.