Free The Weight of Numbers by Simon Ings

father.
    Shortly after her father walked out for good, her uncle visited her and her mother at home. She has a vague memory of being sent upstairs by her mother; of lying on her bedroom floor and pressing her ear to a crack between the boards. If she heard what her uncle said, she has no memory of it.
    She understands, now that she is leaving, that her uncle enjoyed her company, that many of the errands and tasks he set for her were made up so that the two of them might spend time together when by rights they should both have been working.
    She remembers making blood puddings with him. ‘We waste hundreds of gallons of blood a year, Kathleen. Well, what can we do about this? How can we turn this wastage into profit?’ Whatever they were up to – visiting a neighbour’s farm, experimenting in the firm’s huge galley kitchen, taking drives through the country – he had a way of describing the activity so that it seemed important to his business.
    â€˜The blood’ll splash my dress,’ she protested.
    â€˜Nonsense.’ Her uncle’s dark, friendly features wobbled uncertainly towards what he thought was a ‘business-like’ expression. He looked as though he were sucking a boiled sweet.
    He brought her an apron – a long one, it reached almost to her feet – and helped her lift the bucket. Together they strained the pig’s blood through a muslin cloth into a pan, and added spices, oatmeal, fat in tiny dice. He showed her how to fill the casing, how to tie it off. Everything had to be a bravura performance with him, even the making of puddings. ‘Here, you try!’ She was afraid that she might mark her clothes, her shoes. What would her mother say? He could not persuade her. He shook his head, and did the job himself. She watched him, and though it was a trivial thing, she felt that she had let him down.
    When the puddings were done, he lifted one from the boiling water by its string, laid it on a board, and cut it through with a knife. It was light like a soufflé. Delighted, he told her to fry some up for them. She did not know how. He showed her, dripping a knob of lard off a butter knife into a hot pan: ‘You cook this at home, surely?’
    Tongue-tied, she shook her head. He set places for them. He sat her down, adjusting the chair beneath her, as though she were in a hotel. She blushed.
    â€˜Eat up!’
    She speared a mouthful with her fork. The black blood melted on her tongue.
    *
    On the bus home, and as usual, the Bridgeman boys – George and Robert, brothers, apprentice slaughtermen, who lived at the end of her street – came and sat behind her. They sniggered at her, and one of them said something disgusting about her and her uncle. She knew nothing she could say would heal their resentment of her: their boss’s favourite, his poor relation.
    As the bus rolled over the bridge into the village, the bigger of the boys dug about in the pocket of his trousers and produced a twist of bloody paper. He unwrapped it, leaned over and dropped a pig’s eye into Kathleen’s lap. Kathleen leapt out of her seat, speechless, pale with disgust. The smaller boy practically fell off his seat for laughing. ‘Oh George,’ he cried, and patted his brother on the arm, ‘th’art a proper one!’
    Her mother scolded her. ‘I’ll never get it out,’ she snapped, scrubbing at the bloody mark on Kathleen’s dress. ‘I never shall. It’s quite ruined.’
    Kathleen mentioned the puddings and lied about how the stain was made: a splash, she said, an accident. While she talked she wrapped her arms around her body. She was cold without her dress.
    â€˜Put your hands by your sides,’ her mother said.
    Kathleen did as she was told.
    â€˜Stand up straight.’
    The dress was a good one. The sun had set by the time the surface of the material gave way under her mother’s scrubbing brush.