Mac Fecker, The Pig And The Spy (Part One)

freshly washed garment, had the textural qualities of a sun-dried raisin. “Get back to that camp and rescue Butch this minute.”

  “But I haven’t had me breakfast,” protested Jack, who smiled to himself for being so clever as to know the secret of not having to iron shirts which was to put them on with the shirt still slightly damp and to only wear shirts that were one size too small.

  “I’ll go with you, Dad,” offered Sean, who raised his fists and smiled, but looked less like a fighter and more like a constipated geriatric trying to pass wind.

  “How can you worry about your belly when poor Butch could be getting corrugated or fed truth drugs or something?” whimpered Aoife.

  “I think you mean interrogated,” said Manston, who came in scratching his head, still wondering since when the Mac Fecker’s had started using toasters as alarm clocks.

  “Manston will go with you!” snapped Aoife, who congratulated herself for being so well organised and only wished that the others would recognise her talents in that area.

  With a tut, Jack accepted his defeat and made for the door, but he made for the door slowly mumbling in a low voice, like Merlin himself might have mumbled. “Ye can take a horse to water but ye can’t learn it new stuff.”

  “Manston can’t go,” said Grainne, who took Sean to the sink and held his hand under the cold tap, hoping the water would take away the swelling and the pain. “ Manston you had better go and meet Mary, so Grainne, you had better go with Jack.”

  “Ah Aoife,” groaned Sean. “That’s not fair.”

  “You stay here, our Sean, and help me tidy up,” said Aoife.

  “I don’t want the Tipperary Mac Fecker’s thinking we have no breeding.”

  “Sounded like ye were having some last night,” quipped Manston.

  “Aye,“ said Jack, fondly, as a soft smile spread across his lips, till he noticed them all staring at him, then he immediately found himself lost for words and slightly confused.

  “I don’t know how long Mary intends staying with us but I want all of you to be on your best behaviour,” warned Aoife.

  “But I wanted to go with me dad,” moaned Sean. “I’ve never been to camp with him.”

  “Nay lad,“ said Jack, who like the others had come closer to the kitchen area as one side of the first six slices of medium sliced white had been lightly scorched, or flambé if you’re posh.

  The kitchen was so cold that there was no need for a fridge, which was just as well as it was broken, so Grainne kissed the butter with the flame of the blow torch, a process that ensured easy spreading every time, and the toast disappeared, not with a poof, not that there were many in County Down, but with a crunch, a smile and a polite belch.

  “Where’s mine?” asked Sean, who constantly proved himself to be the runt of the Mac Fecker litter, and a stupid one at that.

  “Here,” said Aoife, who quickly buttered a fresh slice of bread, folded it in half and shoved it into an apparently empty jam jar, then, forcing it around the inside of the jar, like washing a cup, collected all the straggly bits into a smudged line of blackcurrant along the edge of the bread.

  “Ta,” said Sean, who took one bite, then turned his back on the others, as no matter how simple you were, hunger was one of the things you could read in a person’s eyes.

  “Manston!” snapped Jack, “Will ye get away from that mirror and go and meet Mary!”

  “Yeah,” sneered Sean, who pushed back some well-chewed bread and jam that, had oozed from his mouth like a lava flow. “Ye can’t try to impress Mary. That’s wrong that is, chatting up your own cousin, your own flesh and blood. It’s incense.”

  “Aye,” agreed Jack. “There’ll be none of that here.”

  “Look,” said Manston, stepping back from the mirror and admiring his reflection. “I won’t be doing anything. I can’t help it if women find me attractive. And if I’m the only Mac Fecker with good looks, then so be it.”

  “Good looks!” laughed Grainne. “I’ve seen better looking doorstops!”

  “Yeah,” snorted Sean. “Me too!”

  “You’re not the only Mac Fecker with good looks,” sighed Aoife, who threw her arms around Jack’s neck and hoisted herself up to smudge her lips against his.

  “I’d better be off now,” stammered Jack, who didn’t like to show any affection in front of the young ones, especially when sober. “Now Manston, remember to be patient with Mary,” warned Jack, as he tried to break Aoife’s grip. “Mac Feckers aren’t exactly blessed with brains, but a Mac Fecker from Tipperary!”

  “Patience is my middle name,” sighed Manston, who was wiping some spittle across his eyebrows.

  “I thought it were Sharon,” laughed Grainne, as she slammed Manston away from the mirror and out through the front door with a swing of her hips that would have made Eddie Waring happy.

  “Drive careful,” said Aoife. Grainne waved, by wiggling her fingertips.

  “And get a move on, Manston,” ordered Jack. “There’s nothing worse than keeping people waiting, especially family.”

  Manston left the kitchen and having managed to start the van, fourth time, swung it around, using every inch of space in the yard, which he didn’t have to; he just liked scattering the chickens. Then he sped off along the rough lane sounding like a Jamaican steel band that was seriously out of tune.

  “Now Sean,” said Jack, as the noise of Manston driving off in the van diminished. “I want to go and check on the badgers in the top field.”

  “Badgers?” asked Sean.

  “Aye badgers,” said Aoife, who could tell from the blue circle on the worktop that the blowlamp had a leak, or else someone had made a mess while filling it. “Last night when we were coming back from Flannagan’s your dad thought he saw some badgers in far corner of top field. So nip up there and see what’s what.”

  “Do they bite?” asked Sean.

  “Don’t be soft,” laughed Aoife, “not unless you’re trying to hurt them. Your dad doesn’t like badger baiting, thinks it’s fecking cruel, so we’re going to keep an eye on them. Protect them like.”

  “Okay,” said Sean, who slipped on his coat and ran off into the morning as happy as a freshly watered puppy.

  “Come on, Grainne love,” groaned Jack. “By the time we get there they’ll have made Butch a general.”

  “Made him an offer more like, if I know soldiers,” said Aoife.

  Grainne gave as much of herself as she could the once over in the tiny mirror, then sprinted, with a slight wobble to the right, to the slops van where she wriggled onto the passenger seat, then held herself in while she slammed the door, then paused, as the sharp sweet odour of rotting food caught the back of her throat.

  “Something wrong?” asked Jack, who started the van, first time, and popped the remaining corner of toast into his mouth.

  “No. Nothing’ wrong Uncle Jack,” said Grainne, who wouldn’t hurt her Uncle Jack’s feelings, not on purpose and not unless he started it.

  The smell wasn’t too bad, she kept telling herself; the smell wasn’t too bad, not once you were moving that is.

  Most of the van’s interior refinements were missing, something to do with a fire, but the engine worked, the tyres were good and as long as you used the gears properly you could manoeuvre accurately, almost.

  The camp was only ten minutes away. A huge relaxation in their security status and some wall that had fallen down now meant that one lucky person could enter the camp and take the slops away. Many pig men would have murdered for access to such a constant supply of high-grade animal feed, but as far as slops were concerned, even free slops, there was always a fine balance between quantity, distance and quality. It was an equation as familiar to pig breeders, as the one about the sum of the square of the roots of the hypotenuse equation was familiar to schoolboys.

  Jack was the closest pig man, it wasn’t worth other pig breeders applying for it, it would work out too costly. Some people didn’t apply because of
the huge golf ball like structures that dominated the site. Rumours existed that going too close to a golf ball structure could seriously damage your breeding potential, but even after ten days, Jack’s pigs seemed to be doing fine and the chickens were now laying again.

  “Oi!” called one of the armed guards on the gate. “Get a move on mate!”

  Jack shook himself. One of the doors in the closest golf ball thingy was open and Jack, like any normal person, tried to have a look inside. Someone had once told him that it’s where they operated on aliens that had crash-landed on earth. Aliens in Ireland. That would explain a lot of things. Jack drove through the gate, having pointed at his fresh station security pass that was proudly stuck on his windscreen where the road tax should have been. The guard waved him on.

  Jack coaxed the truck to a standstill right outside the main door of the guardroom. It was only then that they noticed a man with a toothbrush cleaning the base of one of the six pillars that lined the front of the guardroom, making it look like a very poor copy of a Greek temple. A very small Greek temple. The man with the toothbrush looked up.

  “I wouldn’t park it there, mister,” warned the man, in a forced whisper.

  As Jack was halfway out of the cab and had already placed one foot on the ground, he wondered whether to heed his advice or ignore it, but the choice was made for him as the main door to the guardroom swung open; inwards. Like a rocket burst on bonfire night, a man walked out from the shadowy gloom of the