Fatlands

  ‘And you’d buy more if it were cheaper?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘Then what does it matter to you how it is for the pigs?’

  The wiry man shot him a half-glance. He pushed his beer forward on to the table and leaned back in his chair. ‘No, Duncan, I think we should talk about it. Our young reporter here is obviously interested, aren’t you, Helen?’

  He hit the Christian name with just a touch of the inverted commas about it. I nodded. Rumour has it that Van Morrison has a considerable temper. I’ve always assumed it was something to do with talent and the music industry, but maybe it goes with the build.

  ‘I expect you’re too young to remember rationing, aren’t you? One egg a week, a square of butter, couple of rashers of streaky bacon or Spam and a scrawny chicken every two months if you were lucky. It’s all different now, of course. Now we’ve milk coming out of our ears and larders overfl owing with meat, poultry, fresh vegetables, the lot. And all cheap at the price. You work for the environment section, do you?’

  ‘Er, no. I work for everyone. General features, but I’ve an interest in country matters.’

  ‘Of course you have. Then you probably know most of this, anyway. I read a piece by one of your colleagues once. It said that the average British family now spends a third less than it used to on food. A third less. Bloody miracle, eh? And thanks to what? Us farmers? Well, we certainly do our bit, subsidies permitting. We’re still working all the hours God gave us, still trying to earn an honest living, doing the best for our animals. But it doesn’t make for that much more food. At least not in the quantities you lot want to eat it. No, to really increase production, you see, we need help. We need pesticides for the crops, and factory farming for the meat. Factory farming and drugs. And the more intensively we use it all, the more food you get. And the more food you get, the cheaper it is, and the cheaper it is, the more you lot want to eat of it.’ He broke off for a last swig of beer. No one said anything. But then it was obvious he hadn’t finiished. I had stopped scribbling.

  ‘Don’t suppose you need to write this down, do you? Intelligent girl like you knows it all already, eh? So, where were we? Oh yes, how is it for the animals? Well, put it this way. They’ve got a lot less going for them than in the old days when they were suckled until eight weeks and then sat out in the pig pens with their noses in the muck watching the world go by. Now it’s a little more … well, intensive. Now your average piglet is weaned at twenty-one days and on the butcher’s slab five months later. In between, it spends its life stuffed in with hundred of others eating, shitting and generally enjoying the pleasures of life. I doubt it’ll notice AAR. It’ll just grow a little faster and die a little sooner, with a little more help from the vet on the way. Either way I wouldn’t want to be one of them. And I expect you wouldn’t, either. But then until you, and all the folks like you, are willing to give up some of your meat, or pay one hell of a lot more for it, then that’s how it’s going to be, isn’t it?’

  The place was silent when he finished. And everyone was looking at me: the Ancient Mariner, the barman, all of them. Town versus country. They produce, we consume and both sides feel exploited. Old animosities, going back a good deal further than BSE. I played with my pencil. ‘So what about this new drug AAR? What does it do to the animals?’ I asked quietly, staring at him. ‘You don’t think it could have anything to do with Tom Shepherd’s car being blown up?’

  It caused a ripple among the other two, but Van the man didn’t even blink. ‘You’re missing the point, young Helen. It’s not the drugs that are the problem. It’s you lot.’

  ‘So why don’t you take a stand? Make us listen.’ He shook his head, as if he couldn’t be bothered with me. ‘I mean it. If you don’t approve of drugs, then why use a new one?’ It sounded good, but we all knew it was a lastditch attempt to get back in the ring.

  ‘Because if AAR saves one week in the rearing of two thousand pigs, that adds up to the kind of money that if I don’t make, my neighbour will. Which means that me and every pig farmer like me would be out of business before you could say “free market” if we didn’t use it. And because in the end it’s a matter of degree, and when it comes to the best interests of my animals I still know more than the nutters who want to tear down the farm fences and set them all free. Although you, of course, may have some sympathy with that viewpoint. Now, which newspaper was it you say you were from?’

  I swallowed. ‘I didn’t. But it’s the Daily Telegraph.’

  And he gave me a big smile. ‘Well, then Miss Parkin, We’ll look forward to reading your article. If, that is, they publish it.’

  I closed my notebook and got up with what little dignity I could muster. I put out my hand, but no one took it. They were still looking when I went out the door.

  In the car park it took me a while to find my keys. I wouldn’t like you to think I was shaken, only a bit stirred. I had ridden into all of this on my white charger consumed with the ideals of justice and truth. Stupid, really. You’d think by now I would have learnt that in most cases the good guys are just less mean than the bad ones. The keys continued to elude me, so I upturned my handbag on the bonnet of the car and started all over again. Which meant that I had my head turned away when he walked out from what must have been the other entrance to the pub. Which also meant I didn’t really look at him until he had reached the motorcycle on the other side of the car park and was lifting up the helmet. So I really have no idea at all if it was just a trick of the light, a trick of my eye, or a trick of my desire that made that halfprofile look suddenly so familiar. Because by the time I registered it in my stomach and turned to face him, the helmet was on and he was already astride the bike. He stopped for just a second, to take the cigarette out of his mouth and toss it into the hedgerow. Then he kick-started the motor. It sprang into life just as I yelled out. He didn’t hear. I scooped the debris off the bonnet, clutching the keys and fumbling with the lock. I was as fast as fast could be, but it wasn’t fast enough. By the time I got the engine started he was out of the car park. And by the time I was out of it, he was nowhere to be seen, and the sound of the bike had faded, leaving no possible clue as to which direction or where to go.

  I sat still for a moment, my heart thumping like the drum section of a Dave Clark record. I pulled the photo out of its envelope and stared at it. Who knows? I thought of going back into the pub to ask, but I just couldn’t see them being that helpful. If it had been him, then what on earth was he doing so near to Vandamed? Unless, that is, his cover was better than I thought: just another young student who used to work at the research centre coming back for a couple of pints with the lads?

  Too many questions I couldn’t answer. Time to go back to higher education.

  CHAPTER TWELVE My Boyfriend’s Back

  Ipswich Poly was a wretched, decaying sixties building, concrete streaked with rain and birdshit—the kind of thing to drive Prince Charles into a frenzy of carbuncles.

  I waited in the reception office while they tried to track down a grant cheque for a girl who looked altogether too young to be so old. Grants. They were about as distant as childhood now. Maybe when I’m eighty, it ’ll all come back. Will it be worth the wait?

  The registrar couldn’t put a face to the name. I would have shown her the photograph, only it might have made her suspicious. As it was, it didn’t take her long to track him down. Barringer, Malcolm—third-year computer sciences. Where would he be? Well, why didn’t I try the computer labs? I didn’t hold out much hope. Somehow, animal rights aside, he just didn’t look like the kind of chap to spend his days in communion with a machine.

  The labs stretched out over two floors. The students, huddled around terminals in groups, reminded me of the pigs in their concrete compartments, making meat for people who didn’t want to know how it was made. Between the philosopher and the farmer I was fast heading for a crisis of conscience. Maybe Malcolm Barringer would be my road to Damascus. I asked a girl a
t the coffee machine if she knew him. She said she did, and that she had just seen him come in. He was working at the end terminal in the room opposite. Sometimes everything just falls into your lap.

  I thanked her and headed on in. He was sitting with his back to me. He wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and there was a tatty leather jacket on the back of his chair—the uniform of yoof. I thought I remembered the jacket from the bike. I walked up behind him. He was deep in concentration, head down writing something. The nape of his neck had a splattering of blackheads on it. I took a breath and got ready.

  ‘Malcolm Barringer?’

  He turned, and as the profile flashed by I knew immediately it wasn’t him. Oh, the resemblance to the photo was there, all right. You could see how Grafton might have made the mistake: the same age, the same colour hair, maybe even something approximating to the same shape of face. But there it ended. The young man I was looking at now was still a boy, podgy and ordinary with a chin that was already giving way to weakness. Not at all like the young James Dean. Or Matt Dillon. I have to admit I was a tad disappointed. Disappointed, but not exactly surprised.

  It didn’t take long. But then there wasn’t much to ask. Yes, he was who he was supposed to be, and no, he had never applied for any vacation jobs with Vandamed, although in his first year he had done some vacation work with a small subsidiary drugs company in London and they would probably have references for him. As for last summer, well, he’d been travelling round Turkey with his girlfriend. Didn’t get back until the day after term began.

  So whoever it was had simply used Barringer’s name, his college details and probably even given his past vacation job as a reference. All easy facts to find out. And equally easy to check without exposing the fraud. Vandamed obviously hadn’t thought it worth probing any deeper. So much for their improved security service. Maybe Frank should tender for the contract. He could do better with his eyes closed. As for me I was bored already.

  Over the top of his head I spotted the clock. Ten minutes past five. This time it wasn’t that I’d forgotten, just that I’d got carried away with the job in hand. I tried calling the institute to warn him, but the trouble with having an affair with a therapist is that they are always talking to someone else. Had it been any road other than the A12 I might have made it. But the long, slow urban sprawl plus heavy-duty roadworks meant that by the time I got into the West End, it was gone eight o’clock. Then came the relaxing business of finding a parking place. You really need two cars in London. One to drive and the other to pick up from the pound. I eventually squeezed into a tiny space in Chinatown. By then there wasn’t much point in rushing. I got to the theatre at twenty-five past. He had left the ticket at the box office, and had gone in without me. Not a great sign. And when I tried to follow, I discovered it was verboten till the interval.

  I sat in the bar cradling a Perrier and sorting out my excuses, then moved on to an analysis of the day past. Funny. When I woke up this morning, pigs were just another form of fast food. Now they seemed set to become the meaning of life. Or worse.

  In retrospect I should have thought less and spent more time feeling guilty. But then I didn’t realize he was going to take it so hard. Well, even therapists have to lose their temper sometimes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re always sorry, Hannah. It’s becoming a theme in our relationship.’

  ‘Nick. I left enough time, I swear. It’s just I got caught in traffic.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Listen, come on. This way at least you don’t have to queue for your interval drink.’ I pushed a Scotch and soda across the table. He looked less than convinced, but shrugged his shoulders and took the drink. ‘OK. So now you can tell me what I missed.’

  It turned out to be a little more complicated than I had expected: one of those moral thrillers where no one is quite what they seem and where you need to know everyone’s versions of the same event to get to the answer, which may or may not be the same as the truth. It was a problem I was not unfamiliar with. But right at that moment I didn’t have enough energy to work out my own plot, let alone anyone else’s. For a start, who was Malcolm Barringer if he wasn’t Malcolm Barringer, and what was squeaky-clean Vandamed not telling me about their precious Dr Shepherd?

  ‘Hannah?’

  ‘What? I mean, yes, it sounds wonderful. Obviously it really is as good as everyone says.’ He didn’t reply, just looked at me. Sometimes I wish he wasn’t so good at hearing what people are trying not to say. I leant over and squeezed his hand. ‘I am listening, Nick, honestly. It’s just I’ve had a weird day.’

  ‘Like yesterday and the day before, you mean? And the week before that. It’s work, Hannah. Like everybody else you have to make a decision as to where it stops and you begin. And if I did this to you, you’d be the first to shout foul.’

  I took it on the chin. Because sometimes you don ’t have time to duck. ‘I know that. It’s not that I don’t—’ At which point, some might say luckily, I was saved by the bell. ‘I’ m sorry—’

  He closed his eyes and gave me a fake friendly swipe. ‘And will you stop saying that.’

  Given that I didn’t understand what was happening, the second half was really pretty good. I listened hard so I could contribute fully to the conversation afterwards. But as it turned out, we didn’t talk much on the way back to the car. At first I thought he still had the sulks. It took me a while to realize it was all a little more serious.

  At the driver’s door he kissed me goodnight. As kissers go Nick can have quite a way with him, so you really know when it isn’t one of his best. He let me go and stood back. I opened the door, but he didn’t move. ‘You’re not coming back with me?’

  He shook his head. ‘You’re humming like a generator. I find it easier to sleep with the power turned off.’

  ‘You could always help me to relax,’I said coyly. But it’s never been my strongest suit, flirtation.

  ‘Yeah, but could you do the same for me?’

  I smiled. ‘OK. Point taken. I’m sorry … I mean, I ’m not sorry. I’m … er … Listen, thanks for getting the tickets. I promise to be better behaved next time. When do I see you?’

  He gave a little laugh. ‘Well, in my diary it says this is the weekend that Josh is with his grandparents so we get to go away together. But … you tell me.’

  ‘The weekend. Oh, Yes, I …’

  He let me flounder for a bit. But it didn’t do either of us any good. ‘Oh, come on, Hannah,’ he said at last, fuelled more by impatience than anger. ‘It’s not that hard to work out. You seriously think it’s going to damage your independence, sharing the same hotel room with me? We’ve known each other for almost six months. I don’t want to marry you, I don’t want you to have my children. I’m not even sure if I want to spend next Christmas with you. However, I would like to feel that when we’re together you’re not always somewhere else. I know work is important. It isn’t exactly irrelevant to me, either. And I know how cut up you are about the girl. It’s just I’m not interested in someone who doesn’t know where she is. I had that for seven years. And I don’t need it any more. OK?’

  He stared at me. A couple walking down the street looked over at us and then passed on, thanking their lucky stars it wasn’t them. It’s a good reminder. There’s always someone somewhere in the world having a worse time than you are. I looked at the ground. How come when anyone gets mad at me it makes me feel like a child again? Something to do with my father, no doubt. Maybe we could talk about it post coitus sometime. If there was another post coitus, that is.

  In the end I said what I felt, although I must admit it sounded feeble. ‘You’re right, Nick. I’m sorry.’

  He shook his head. ‘Yeah, well, so am I. I spend my life talking to too many kids. Mary always said it made me sanctimonious. Let’s leave it open, OK? If you want to go away, let me know. Otherwise call me when you want my company.’

  I watched him go. Nice body. Back view again, e
h? Fact is, when the mood is upon me (which is usually when I have made him somehow more unattainable), I still fancy him rotten. But that’s why moods are such dangerous things. You can’t guarantee how long they’ll last. And what happens if the sex gets interrupted by the image of a herd of overweight pigs stampeding through my libido? I slammed my hand against the window of the car. God damn it. How come what you want to give is never the same thing as what they want to take? Maybe I should talk to a therapist about it.

  I drove north with the stereo blasting out something young and carefree. To add insult to injury I was starving. Only two cheese rolls since breakfast. It’s always seemed a severe misjudgement of nature to me, people having to eat so often to keep going. I went home via the back streets and stopped at my local take-away, otherwise known as the Golden Cockroach—the only place likely to be serving after 11.30 on a weekday night. Peter was busy over the charcoals, as he has been ever since he arrived from northern Cyprus thirty years ago. Maybe it reminded him of the heat he had left behind. It’s still not enough to make him happy, not if the amount of whisky he consumes every night is anything to go by. On the other hand he’s one of those people who are only truly happy when they’re miserable—or maybe it’s the other way around. I had been buying my kebabs from him for two years before he even deigned to notice me. Then one Monday night while I was waiting for a take-away he leant over the counter and poured me out a slug of rotgut. From there we proceeded to drink each other under the table. I’m not ashamed to say that he won. Everything I know of him comes from that one night. So now I am the daughter that he never had. Greek sentimentality. Pathos with style.

  This evening he was darker than usual. Just like fathers can be. I stood and watched the doner kebab going round and round, drops of meat grease falling on to the tray below. The smell made me sick with hunger. If that was a leg of lamb, then it came from a bigger lamb than I had ever seen. Lamb. Funny how the word meant a piece of meat rather than a fluffy bundle of young life.