Tales from the Tower, Volume 2 (17 page)

She laughed. ‘I'd soon be poor if I sold them off at that size.'

‘Yes?' He nodded, and began to question her about the price of full-grown pigs, her profits, the living she made here. She would have minded if it were anyone else, but there was something so open, so frank about the questions that they seemed guileless.

‘May I watch?' she said as he sketched one of the sows. Piglets were lined up along her belly suckling and nudging at the soft dugs. He nodded, concentrating. His hand was deft and quick, and he drew with a sureness that made her marvel, the lines economical and expressive. And yet the piglets looked strange when he had finished.
Exotic
, Greer told herself, as if he saw them through an old-world filter. She thought of the sinuous eucalypts in early colonial paintings squeezed into the mould of a birch or alder because their forms and colours were too novel for European sensibilities. For a moment she thought she glimpsed things through his eyes, and saw her farm grown suddenly unfamiliar.
Do we always see only what we expect to see
? she wondered.
Even the artists and poets?

She wanted to ask him, to say that making poetry was like drawing or painting, that it required the same fresh glance, the same sifting and shaping, but she could not find the words. Often days passed on the farm when Greer spoke to no one but the pigs and the dogs, and when she did meet someone, her voice felt rusty and dry, and she could think of nothing to say. Small talk had never been small for Greer.

Since her parents had died, words had sometimes deserted her utterly, and she worried that she would become mute. Yet on good days, when she sat at her desk to write, words came unbidden and she folded them into her small, spare poems with a deep pleasure.

The old smokehouse her father had built sent him into ecstasies; it was just like the ones at home. She smiled at his enthusiasm. Charlie, however much he'd admired the farm, would never say much more than, ‘You've got a nice set-up here.'

‘Do you make sausage? Salami? Hams?'

‘No. When my father was alive, he—'

‘But Greer,' he cut across her, ‘you could make much money from selling these . . . these . . .'

‘Smallgoods?'

‘Yes, these small goods. Much money.'

She wanted to laugh. Raised never to discuss religion, politics or money, Greer felt suddenly liberated by his complete indifference to social niceties. He was like a child who says loudly what everyone is thinking but is too afraid to utter.

Then they were back at the killing shed, and he hesitated outside the door to the cool room.

‘The blood will still be good,' he said. ‘Shall I show you how we make blood pudding? Blood pudding you could sell, also.'

She felt a warm rush of nostalgia. ‘My dad loved black pudding.'

‘Barley first,' he said, once they were back in the kitchen and the blood had been salted and thinned with vinegar. ‘It must be soaked. Do you have . . .?'

She didn't.

‘But you will have oatmeal. Good Scotch woman will not be without oatmeal.' He grinned at her, another little joke.

She returned the smile and brought the rolled oats.

He scooped up a quantity with both hands and dropped it into a bowl, passed it to her and indicated the tap. ‘Plenty of your good rainwater to soak  . . . no – more, more.'

She did as she was told, and had just set it down when he said, ‘Now fat. That beautiful fat I saw on your pig this afternoon. It is perfect. We need—' He indicated with his hands the amount, then said, ‘And bring belly fat. I will show you how to make škvarky, another very good dish.'

She strode out to the carcass, aware of every inch of her body, feeling that she might skip, or dance, or run for the sheer delight of it, as children do. She remembered the story of stone soup her mother had told her when she was a little girl, the cunning stranger drawing what he needed from his witless host. They had laughed about it, both confident that they would never be so gullible. Greer cut away enough of the creamy fat to fill a basin, then some liver and lights for the dogs, and strips of belly fat.

His eyes glistened when she gave him the basin, and he sank his hands into it, slicing and cubing the fat in a trice.

‘Onions now, please.'

Greer fetched the basket and he took three large ones, cut them in half, slipped off their skins and sliced them with startling haste.

‘Butter next, and your biggest frying pan.'

The kitchen soon filled with the smell of frying onions, and he issued more instructions: the oatmeal drained, a large bowl, salt, pepper, paprika?

Greer shook her head.

‘I have my own supply,' he said. ‘Don't worry. You are not the first in this primitive country to lack paprika!' He slipped outside and returned with a small tin of reddish spice which he sprinkled over the oatmeal. Then he tipped the onions into the bowl and blended everything together with his hands.

‘Now, blood, please.'

She obeyed.

‘It is best to use before it . . .'

‘Clots?'

‘Yes, clots. Pour it in until I say no.' She did so, her stomach turning at the texture, which reminded her of curdling milk. He began to mix and squeeze the bloody mass, and Greer realised she had only ever seen someone use their hands to mix scone dough or pastry. This looked alien and slightly disgusting.

‘Ah, this reminds me of my papa. He made the best blood pudding – 
No!
'

She stopped pouring at once.

‘This is enough.'

‘And your mother?'

He frowned. ‘Mother is dead.'

‘Oh. I'm sorry.'

‘No need. She was mad. Best she is dead.'

When he had worked the mixture to an even consis- tency, he set the bowl aside, spread a tea towel over it, and said, ‘While it cools, we will prepare the . . . what do you call this?' He indicated the mound of his belly.

‘Stomach?'

‘No, within.'

‘Oh, guts?'

‘Guts? No, I don't think so.'

‘Intestines, innards, entrails.'

‘Intestines.'

‘I feed them to the dogs, or bury them.'

‘Greer, you must not. You need them for your sausage! Come, I will show you. They are not yet given to the dogs, I am hoping?' Seeing her expression, he waved a hand. ‘No matter, we can use cloth instead. We need no intestines, then.'

The blood pudding was finally seething in a pudding cloth when he sat down to paint. He unpacked a small travelling paintbox, the colours vivid as gems, and opened a cloth pouch of brushes.

‘May I verk here? On the kitchen table?' he asked politely, sliding the lunch dishes to one end.

‘Yes, of course.'

‘Please, some more water. Two jars is enough.'

She fetched them, and sat opposite him.

‘This pudding,' he declared as he loaded a brush with crimson, ‘is not traditional way. But this is good for you Scotch people. Haggis, you call it?'

‘Yes, I think so.'

‘Next time when you kill the pig, you must have tubes all ready. Waste nothing, my father always says.'

He seemed to forget her then, concentrating on the paint.

What could she offer him in return for all he'd brought her? What did she have that would do?

‘I write poetry,' she said. It came out baldly. ‘I—'

‘So, a poet. “Here with a loaf of bread beneath a bough, a flask of vine, a book of werse . . .”'

She laughed.

‘You have a book of werse?' He smiled broadly. ‘You are published poet?'

‘Yes.'

‘You must show me this book.'

His attention shifted to the stripped ham bone before she could get up and fetch a copy of her book. ‘Will you make soup?'

‘Maybe,' she said, awed. His appetite for food – for life – seemed unquenchable.

‘The pudding is done, I think.'

Greer fetched plates, forks, knives and napkins, the sight of the two settings on the kitchen table lifting her spirits as it always did, even when it was only Charlie dropping by for lunch.

‘Beer is the drink to have with blood pudding,' Otto said rather wistfully.

‘I've got beer. In the cellar. Wait a bit.' Charlie was the only one who ever drank her father's home brew.

By the time she returned with a bottle in each hand, the plates were piled with slices of steaming pudding, its strange cloying smell filling her nostrils. She poured them a glass each, and set the bottle between them.

‘Bon appétit,' he said.

‘Cheers.' She heard how casual that sounded, almost childish, and speared a slice of the pudding, tasting it. It was good, livery, rich and savoury, but with a bitter aftertaste, and too strong to eat alone. She left the table and brought tomatoes and salad greens, a handful of little carrots, and her last loaf.

‘Good?' He smiled at her.

‘Yes, good,' she said, and returned the smile. It was a long time since she had sat with someone at this table, and she felt a sudden wash of happiness.

After the meal they sat and talked. He had finished the blood pudding and half the bread, emptied both bottles of beer, and they had begun on a bottle of whisky her parents had kept at the back of the pantry. Bolstered by the generous slug Otto had poured them both, Greer remembered studying Holan and Seifert, the only poets she knew from his part of the world, and offered them to him as a sort of surety, but when she moved on to the Russians he stopped her.