Mastitis caused swelling of the udder and teat in the first instance. Passing milk would be accompanied by a more intense ache than the milking machines usually caused. As the days passed and the infection worsened, a discharge would begin to leak from the affected teat. Typically this discharge would contain some milk, some blood and some pus. Milking would continue regardless of the contamination. The increasing pain caused to the milker was not taken into account.
Sometimes, the teat would harden and crack like baked mud. Blood and pus would then flow freely. At this point, most milkers would be given a day or two of rest because the flow of their milk was retarded by the infection. This was their chance to recover if they were going to. A few did. Most didn’t.
It was cheaper for Magnus to sell his milkers as meat than it was to treat them for the infection. Milkers whose mastitis worsened into fever were slaughtered, their meat sold for the most basic burger and sausage mince. In the long term, all milkers were headed for the grinder but those who made it through an episode of mastitis had a few more years of service to look forward to before they faced the bolt gun.
Richard Shanti watched the trucks grumble out of the packing department.
What had been living, what once was sacred, would now become the nourishment for thousands of townsfolk. Halves, hindquarters and forequarters being taken for further processing. Bloodless pink fillets, steaks, chops, ribs and roasting joints transported to butchers where they’d be arranged on sloping, glass-screened displays. Packets of mince, low-grade sausage and retrieved meat heading for the pie makers. There was no soul in the meat, no spirit. As far as Shanti was concerned, the sanctity of the flesh had died with its owners.
Where did that preciousness go, he wondered? Not with the meat in the trucks. Not to the tables of the townsfolk.
From time to time the magnitude of what he was part of and the daily repugnance of it washed far into the hinterland of his awareness, into the exposed avenues and byways of his conscience. How could such violation occur in such great numbers? In those rare moments, he could almost comprehend what it was he contributed in terms of suffering and how that weighed against what little good he did.
On those days he took extra ballast in his pack.
Greville Snipe lived to work. It worried his mum.
‘I’ve got no friends, no hobbies and no vices,’ he would often boast to Ida Snipe as he slipped her a few extra groats and a free two-litre carton of milk. He visited his mum once a week for Sunday tea and always took her some of the ‘bounties of his endeavour’ to keep her happy.
‘You should settle down with someone,’ she would tell him as she twisted a greasy hanky between gnarled, quivering fingers; her face an atlas of concern.
‘I couldn’t be more settled,’ he’d reply, annoyed that the good things he provided were never quite good enough. ‘I’ve got a decent job, plenty of money. I’ve got my health,’ which is more than you’ve got, he always wanted to add. ‘And I’m happy as I am.’
Ida knew her boy worked hard.
‘I’m proud of you,’ she’d say, little tears at the corner of her eyes. ‘You’ve always been a good boy. Good to me.’ But who was going to look after him? He had no time to find the right woman. A man took a good bit of looking after. She knew that because of Greville’s father, Anderton Snipe.
‘One of those poorer girls from the northern quarter would be perfect for you. Quiet, obedient. Good cooks, I’ve heard. And they keep a tidy house too, you know.’ She’d sigh to herself but loud enough for him to hear the wistfulness in it. ‘I’ve got nothing against poor people, Greville. Just remember that.’
Visiting on a weekly basis, Greville found it hard to forget his mother’s class-based forbearance. He told her he’d take a trip to the northern quarter and look into it.
There were things his mum didn’t understand. Things he could never tell her.
Greville Snipe lived to work. His mum would have worried a lot more had she known why.
The numbers of the Chosen were vast, more than ten thousand. But their numbers fluctuated in response to the town’s demand and also to diseases that occasionally afflicted them.
In warm weather, they roamed the fields to the far south west of the town in herds totalling many hundreds of head. Their pale bodies moved in swathes against the grass and mud. When it rained or if it was cold, they crammed into the huge, arch-shaped barns that had been there ever since the town began. The barns were ancient and rotting and there were holes in the roofs and in the walls. They gave the only limited shelter and the Chosen pressed close to each other to stay warm.
Around the perimeters of the fields there were wooden towers where stockmen could observe, count and keep the herds secure. Impenetrable hedges of blackthorn formed the borders of each field. Access gates were high and spiralled with barbed wire. The security measures were unnecessary, though. None of the Chosen had ever tried to break through a fence or a hedge in Abyrne’s history.
Closest to the plant were the dairy herds that needed to make the daily trip for milking. They were kept corralled in the plant to be milked twice in the course of the day and then returned to their fields in the evenings.
The meat herds spent much of their time in the fields and barns. Herds made up of pregnant or nursing mothers and their calves stayed corralled in the plant longer term. When their calves were old enough and their rituals were complete, they would rejoin the main herds as heifers or steers. The Chosen that saw the fields most rarely were the bulls. They were kept penned and separate to prevent fighting and stayed within the plant most of their lives. Veal calves, once in their crates, never saw the fields or any other cattle again.
Anticipation made his heart beat so hard he could feel the throbbing in his neck. His face was hot and his balls ached.
His alarm went off at four in the morning but he never pressed the snooze button. He was washed and dressed within five minutes and tucking into a breakfast of steak and black pudding. He needed plenty of protein for such a long shift. Accompanying his breakfast, Greville Snipe drank boiled milk with three large sugars. Thus fuelled, he was ready for a day in the dairy.
Not for him the clammy, dread air of the slaughterhouse that thrummed all day with stark, final seconds of anticipation. Not for him the blue rubber aprons and knee-high rubber boots. Not for him the captive bolt gun, nor the hoisting chain, nor the double-handled bone cutters. Neither the long-bladed knife nor the saw. Snipe saw himself as a kind man. A humane worker in an inhumane industry.
There was no death in the dairy. There were no struggles, no kicking, no letting of blood. In his working world he breathed a quiet air. Not quite serene perhaps, but certainly not a condemned air. Not yet. In the dairy, the milkers were in the prime of life with years of production still before them. In that time they would eat well and sleep well and the promise of their certain dispatch was far away. Snipe cared for them as best he could. They were valuable and they were his responsibility.
By five o’clock he was checking the herd over before the first milking.
He strolled with pride through the milking parlour. The cows stood with their wrists shackled to their ankles by a long chain. This prevented them interfering with the equipment or resisting the attachment of teat cups to their udders. Snipe’s team of four youths were quick and efficient because of his training. They ran from booth to booth and within minutes were able to connect a hundred and fifty cows to the machines. None of Snipe’s team wanted to be there. If there had been any other job in the world they could have taken, they would have. It was not a time when people had many choices. The milking parlour, the cows, the machinery; all of it gave the youths the creeps. That was another reason they were so fast. Fast, but not careless. He’d trained that out of them.