The mothers and calves were kept together until the calves could be safely separated and given ordinary feed. The mothers would then rejoin whichever herd they had come from, assuming they were still healthy enough following calving. WHITE-047’s calf would be raised in a separate bull enclosure. Other male calves would enter the meat herds to be matured and fattened for slaughter as soon as possible. Female calves would join the regular herds to become milkers or breeding stock for a few seasons before entering the crowd pens themselves.
The shortest-lived of all, barring those born weak or sick, were the veal calves. These young males would be chosen randomly from the newborns and taken away to a warehouse full of small, darkened crates. Here they would be fed a special mix of feed and their movement would be restricted by the dimensions of their enclosure. Prolonged darkness ensured that by the time they were old enough for slaughter, they were practically blind. The veal calves were kept in crates allowing them enough room to sit or lie down but never to stand to their full height. Very soon, each veal calf learned that standing up was a waste of effort and from then on they would remain seated or reclined. When they reached maturity, still much younger than any other cattle, they were taken for slaughter on canvas stretchers because they didn’t have the strength to walk.
Veal slaughter took place in a smaller facility but with very low chain speeds owing to the rarity of the stock. It was one aspect of MMP processing that he had never been involved in and had no wish to be. Fortunately, his skills were required in the main slaughterhouse where the pressure of maintaining high chain speeds was a constant consideration.
As the weeks passed, Shanti watched WHITE-047 and her calf’s progress. The calf looked strong and fed ravenously from its mother. One by one the rituals of the Chosen were performed on the calf and its kind. Their fingers were docked, their big toes were removed, they were dipped. Teeth were extracted as they appeared, to be pulled again when adult teeth arrived. At each new procedure, the mothers became agitated and the sound of sighing and hissing grew loud in the pens and feed lots. Calves were taken by the stockmen and returned minutes later, altered by their tools. The time came for tagging and Shanti watched carefully to see what WHITE-047’s calf would become.
He passed by one day and saw WHITE-047 cradling her calf to her udders and rocking it. The calf was sighing and sucking alternately. Its chest hauled in huge gasps and released long hisses that Shanti knew would have been screams if it still had a voice box. Tears and milk smeared its blotched red face. A thin rivulet of blood still dripped from its right heel and there, finally, Shanti saw its fate sealed by a steel bolt and a coloured tag.
WHITE-047 saw him watching but did not turn away. Unusually, the cow met his gaze from among the hundreds of others. She inclined her head fractionally. Shanti checked for stockmen that might be watching before he returned the gesture as subtly as he could. He smiled in spite of the obvious pain her calf was suffering and he thought he saw her lips change shape too.
The tag was bright blue. Not faded and cracked like its father’s. Its number was 793.
‘We shouldn’t. Not now.’
‘I’ve brought you everything you asked for. And more. Look.’
Maya looked into the bag, saw the wrapped shapes of chops and black pudding. There were other things too. Hand-raised pies and still warm pasties. Saliva flowed beneath her tongue.
‘The girls will be home from school soon.’
‘How soon?’
‘Any moment.’
‘Don’t you want the meat? I know plenty of people who do.’
Fear of malnourishment yanked her like a fishhook. Now that she was plumping the girls up, seeing the rosiness of their cheeks, it was difficult – no, it was impossible – to entertain thoughts of them losing weight again. She must keep them well. That was her task. It was her duty. The only thing a mother could give in the world was love and nourishment to her children and she wasn’t going to allow anything to prevent her. She loved them. They came before everything else. No matter what the cost.
Torrance had her pushed up against the sink, her back to the window where she watched for her family to return each day. His breath smelled of half-digested steak and diseased gums. His teeth were broken or discoloured and kissing him was almost enough to make her vomit. He moved closer pushing cracked lips out through his greasy beard and the stink of his stomach and mouth filled her nose.
But she didn’t have to kiss him. She only had to satisfy him. The quicker she did that, the sooner he would leave. Before he made contact she sank to her knees on the kitchen floor and unbuttoned his trousers. She reached in, found the panel in his underwear and guided his penis through it. Already he was gasping. Before she took it in her mouth she studied it briefly. There wasn’t much to it. In its way, it was very much like a fat, short sausage. The only difference was the musky hair that surrounded it and the hole in its end. Anything was better than kissing him though.
Anything at all.
‘Keep your eyes open and let me know if you see them coming. They mustn’t know. And they must never see me like this.’
Torrance pushed his penis into her face without answering. It fit easily inside her mouth. Even though he thrust with all his strength it never reached the back of her throat. There was very little she had to do, seeing as he wanted to be in command. So she let him pump away at her face and kept her mouth open for him. The worst part was the way her head banged back against the kitchen cupboards.
It was a small price to pay.
When it came right down to it, a bull’s life was a lot easier than a stockman’s.
It was easier than the life of most of the townsfolk of Abyrne. Aside from the quarterly mating flurry, which obviously exhausted the bulls – the stockmen joked about how they’d like a reason to be similarly worn out – there was little else for them to do but feed and rest. Shanti made a point of stopping by BLUE-792’s enclosure regularly, especially in the lunch break when there was likely to be no one else around.
At first he’d hidden from the bull, not letting it know that he was observing it. As the number of visits increased, Shanti let the bull glimpse him through the cracks in his panelled pen. Sometimes he whispered to the bulclass="underline"
‘I’ve seen your son. He’s beautiful.’
Or:
‘He’s going to be a bull. A special one, just like you.’
Did BLUE-792 understand him? The Chosen listened daily to the chatter and banter and shouts of the stockmen. Maybe they could interpret some of the words even though they couldn’t speak. Shanti didn’t care one way or the other. He wanted to let the bull know that he thought about him. That he watched him. That he cared.
These were ideas and feelings he could never share with anyone if he wanted to stay alive and keep his job. He knew he should have been frightened to have such notions but he wasn’t.
That was what really scared him.
Occasionally, when BLUE-792 was resting, Shanti would tap a soft beat on the panels. He would peer through a crack or even stand in plain view on the outside of the enclosure’s gate. The bull watched him but that was all.