Grandpa Bilson was an old man, not so old though that he should be cared for on a regular to permanent basis, or even that he needed to be nursed into bed or onto the toilet, what really made him noticeably old was that he whistled when he talked.
“Ah, Brock my boy,” he said, greeting his son with a big hug and a smack on the back, “finally after thirty years I’m retired you bring home company.”
Brock moaned. “Come on dad, don’t make out you don’t see anyone, you see plenty.”
“Maybe so, but I have to go see them. Nobody goes out of their way to visit me in my own home.” He pinched Brock’s cheeks and continued talking. “Look at you, half shaven and barefooted. In my day I used to get around in a three piece suit and a pocket watch.”
“Come on dad,” Brock whined this time.
Bilson turned his attention to his grandson. “Now Barry,” he said, “come over here and give me a hug, then you can introduce me to your friends.”
Barry grinned stupidly and complied.
With family courtesies over and introductions complete, it was time to get down to business.
Except Bilson had a different idea.
“Food,” he said clapping his hands together, “I’m hungry, you’re hungry, whatever the reasons are for my boys bringing you here can be discussed over dinner and wine, but for now go on, take our guests for a tour while I prepare.”
“I can’t stay dad,” Brock spoke up.
“Why? You got better things to do with your time than spend it with your father?”
“Come on dad. I’ve got a meeting to go to. It’s really important.”
Bilson stared blankly at his son for a moment. “Alright,” he said finally, “You must wear a tie though.”
“Ok dad.”
“And aim for a Windsor knot, not that stupid lazy thing you do when you’re in a hurry. Try to look respectable.”
“Come on dad, you know I can’t get it. You need the same coordination to juggle three balls as you do to tie a Windsor knot.”
“Drama....” Bilson said shaking his head. “And shave properly, you look like a scruff. And put some shoes on....”
“Ok dad,” Brock finished up and walked away.
Bilson snapped his fingers and said to his guests, “Will you excuse me now? Barry will show you around our home, and then we will take dinner on the terrace and tell tall stories.”
It was a grand tour they were taken on, being as it was a big house and all. The story went that it was about two hundred years old, built around three hundred years after the plain was originally discovered and subsequently abandoned due to its non-existent trade opportunities. Further to the story, and looking for solitude after running away from a rather awkward confrontation with an eight feet tall, muscle-bound barbarian warlord’s mistress, who had developed a rather inappropriate infatuation for his wily salesman charm, great great Grandpa Bealnd had one day been leafing through the archive records where he came across a three hundred year old listing on a discovery which at the time had been classified as Empty but green. He built the house with his three and a half sons and his only daughter who had passed during its construction. A plaque in her memory could be seen above the mantle of the fireplace in the sitting room which, not by coincidence, is also where she had died and was then buried simultaneously.
“Three and a half sons?” Billy queried.
“Now there’s a funny story....” Barry went on to tell it, but by the end, even he could understand their reluctance to see its funny side.
Beyond the polished floors and the three reception rooms, below the wide staircase leading to eight bedrooms and their eight adjoining en suites, past the downstairs cloakroom, grand dining room, and very big country style kitchen where Grandpa Bilson was preparing dinner, drinking wine, and singing in a funny language, lay an undulating outside land of green pastures, bordering forests, and free-range farm animals all strangely scarred with the odd divot taken out from various parts of their hides.
Billy noticed this and said, “Barry, what does it mean when there’s a big dent in the side of a pig?”
“It means,” Barry tisked, “that Grandpa Bilson has been eating too much pork. We’ve told him time and time again to rotate his meat intake.”
To Billy the implications seemed horrendous; cutting slabs of meat from the side, or the leg.... or the rump of a beast while it was still alive? Nasty!
Though, assurance was given that it was completely harmless, and exactly how the animals were bred; that is unless, it seemed, Grandpa Bilson was to inadvertently overindulge and thus subsequently eat a beast to the bone before it was able to regenerate itself.
“You simply cut through the skin,” Barry said, emphasising the procedure with his hands, “and leave it attached on the top side so you can peel it back like a flap and then press it in again to cover the hole left behind.”
“And the blood?” Barret asked, possibly a little disgusted now.
“They’ve been bred not to bleed,” Barry answered.
“Huh! So how does that work?” Barret continued.
Barry put a finger to the corner of his mouth and lifted his gaze to the sky, he said, “I don’t know. Go find a biologist on #52 for your answer, that’s where they came from.”
During the conversation, Gabby’s face had been screwed up for the most of it; Rod appeared to be cooking up ideas in his little head as to how one might go about breeding an animal not to bleed; and Cetra listened on curiously, but gave off the impression that she had been there done that all before.
“Do they not wander off?” she asked.
“Occasionally,” Barry said, “but they come back soon enough, there’s nothing out there for them.”
“Doesn’t appear to be anything here for them either,” Billy mumbled to Gabby.
To which Gabby responded, “There is maybe if you’re looking to start a fight.”
“Yeah?” Billy said, catching her gist, “You wanna piece a me?”
“Yes I do,” Gabby followed, “I’ll have a slice of your rump and a kidney please.”
Their subsequent laughter was hushed and handled privately between the two of them, behind their hands and facing side on to the others; they appeared to be sharing a moment.
When the moment was over, and a clanging sound clanged its way up from the house, Barry announced their return to Grandpa Bilson and the dinner that would be awaiting them on the terrace.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR