Tea and Dog Biscuits by Hawkins Barrie

Author:Hawkins, Barrie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2009-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

On My Trail

Never for one moment when I embarked upon dog rescue work could I possibly have dreamed that I would spend my Sunday afternoon cutting up the freshly dead insides of a pig.

It sat there on the kitchen table. A great mound of slimy, off-white and pinkish fatty pig innards.

I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

Only hours ago each pig’s pancreas had been part of a living animal. All eighty of them. It had been Dorothy’s misfortune to arrive at the slaughterhouse as the last of the squealing creatures were offloaded and herded inside.

Now she was showering – trying to get the smell of blood off her, she said. That had been the deal: she would collect the pigs’ pancreas from the abattoir if I would weigh it and divide it into daily portions. As dedicated vegetarians, we had decided to share the ghastly workload.

For some minutes I stood staring at the repugnant mound before me, but I couldn’t put it off any longer: it had to go in the freezer. I picked out what I thought was a whole pancreas and grabbed it tightly in case it tried to get away from me. It felt like a squishy rubber sausage. I must have had only two or three fingers round it; it popped out between index finger and thumb, and plopped onto the floor.

I stared down at the solitary pancreas. This one had some blood spots on it and a streak of dark blood at one end. Putting off having to bend over and gather it up, I foolishly allowed myself to wonder about the pig from which it had come. A friend in a nearby village kept four pigs as a hobby, the old Large Black breed. Each had their own character. Molly was my favourite; she was so gentle for such a big girl, even when trying to steal a tasty morsel from my pocket. Gazing at the pancreas, I wondered if this pig had been a female. How old had she been?

I squatted down, scooped up the pancreas with both hands and dropped it on the scales. Melissa had told us to give Friend just a couple of ounces a day to begin with. The plump specimen before me had a length of stringy fat dangling off one end and weighed nearly three times what was needed for a daily portion. I took a knife from a drawer, grasped the pancreas tightly and began to saw a third of the way along it. To no avail. I went back to the drawer, rummaged through it and found a knife at the bottom with a serrated blade about a foot long, which tapered off to a sharp point – an evil-looking thing I never knew we had. I had just begun sawing when there was a knock at the front door.

Relieved to have an excuse for a break from my horrid task, I pulled open the front door to find myself facing a tall young policeman. I must have stared at him in surprise for some moments.

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