A story for the #holidays: To Gut a Goose

Nowadays, it is not everyone who is called upon to secure their own holiday dinner. We peruse the markets, choose a turkey or ham as we like, dress it and broil it and think nothing of it, but if we were made to garnish the table as it is done on the farms, very few of us would ever put a bird on the table again:

Everyone assisted Searle and Aghatha in bringing the plates into the kitchen, Martje prepared and conveyed the tea trey upstairs, and Boudicca went to start the fire whilst everyone sat around the table, admiring the view from the window, the glumes and awns of the grass preceding the royal wood foretelling a frigid season, the night rime freezing over in a delicate sheen. Teacups furnished every hand, pipes were brought out, and the Tyfferim contingent loomed near the window, to enjoy their pipes for the five minutes the family would allow them to smoke them, effuming in flocculent clouds, making aspirate sighs over their work for the year being done-- excepting Lochan, whose work for the season was not yet over. He had two more months of raising the chickens and pigs and geese that were to garnish the tables of every household come Ailineighdaeth. He did not mind the work, however; Lochan never complained where the rearing of animals was concerned.

                “Just glad we don’t do turkeys, like how they do in Marridon,” said Lochan, standing away from the window and by Calleen. “They can get real vicious when they think they’re gettin’ rounded up. Had a few of ‘em once, ‘cause a few folk in Farriage asked for ‘em for the holidays. One of ‘em snapped at me when I was leadin’ him to the cart. Near took my finger off.”

                Here was a collective glance at Aiden, who returned everyone’s momentary interest with a flat look.    

                “Turkeys are always fightin’ one another,” Lochan continued. “I don’t like that any of ‘em should be killed for the holidays, but if it’s any bird what deserves to be subdued—“ He blushed at his own admission. “Anyhow, I know I got more work to do, but I’m sure grateful for it. It’s hard work, keepin’ all the flocks and herds myself, but it’s rewardin’, and all the babes come spring are always so cute and all. I know carin’ for ‘em means I’m workin’ all year round, but I love ‘em—most of ‘em, anway. Some of ‘em like chewin’ my shirt and pullin’ my belt and eatin’ the extra feed when I’m not lookin’. At least I’m not a reddleman durin’ matin’ times.”

                “Loch, that’s like sayin’ thank the gods I’m a peat cutter and not a kelp burner,” said Sheamas, bemused. “They’re both unforgivin’ professions. Same thing, different sides.”

                “I understand him,” said Boudicca. “It is all hard work, but your hard work is endurable for you. I’m sure Sheamas would not like to be a solider, but I certainly don’t want to be a butcher. I remember the first time I was asked to gut a bird.”

                She grimaced and shook her head, and Jaicobh clapped his hand over his eyes and laughed.

                “Aye, I remember that tragedy,” said Jaicobh, in a reverie. “You were about ten years old, and you were old enough to be muckin’ the pens and pullin’ the sedge. You were already dirty and cut up, so I figured what’s the harm in teachin’ you then. Maddie was ailin’, and you were mature enough to learn what everyone’s gotta learn sometime.”

                Lochan anxiously fiddled with his thumbs. “Not everyone,” he murmured to himself.

                Sheamas and Martje shared a conscious laugh.

                “Aye, it gets us all the first time,” said Martje. I remember when Ma showed me how to do it by swingin’. Wringin’ the neck was the hardest part. Had no trouble guttin’ it.”

                “Which always shocked me a little,” Calleen added. “Martje cut inta that bird like she was cuttin’ a cake.”

                Martje shrugged. “Wasn’t gonna eat any other way.”

                “You can eat plenty o’ things without being so violent and all,” said Lochan, in an accusatory tone, “skinnin’ eels on hooks, pullin’ out spines—I can’t swing a goose over my head and break its neck and force my hand in its—“ He shuddered. “And then if you break its neck but it don’t die--There’s a lotta wrong that can happen!”

                “Maybe that’s why I was able to make breakin’ goose necks a business, ‘cause Martje was the one who taught me how to do it,” said Sheamas, smiling. “She cracked that bird’s neck like a bullwhip, and pulled everythin’ outta the bottom with a bare hand.”

                “Well, you can’t be soft with ‘em,” Martje contended. “Otherwise, they end up tryin’ to get away, and if they ain’t goin’ in the coop, they’re goin’ in the pot.”

                “You have a better head for that than I, Martje. I couldn’t even look at another bird after my first nightmare,” said Boudicca.

                She exhaled and seemed ashamed. Jaicobh was still laughing.

                “After introducing me to the sedge cutting,” Boudicca continued, “my father had decided that I hadn’t been tormented enough for one day. He had me wash my hands and then brought me out to the shed behind the house. All the curing was hanging up, and a few fresh birds were swinging by their feet. It was a damp day, it was dark and absolutely frigid in there.”

                “Well, you gotta keep it cold to keep disease away,” said Jaicobh subrisively.

                “My father, being the generous soul that he is, told me to choose the goose from the paddock that I wanted, but the one I chose was nearly as large as I was, so I did what any child my age would have done: I tried to wring its neck without lifting it.”

                “Oh, no,” Sheamas chuckled.

                “Luckily, it slipped my grasp and ran away, but it padded and honked all over the field, and my father had to chase it to get it back.”

                “It bit me somethin’ fierce,” said Jaicobh, with an exasperated look. “I shoulda just let it go after it escaped the wringin’, but times are hard on a farm, and sometimes you gotta make do with what you have, and that bird was what we had.”

                “I learned that lesson soon enough,” said Boudicca. “As the goose refused to be wrung, he held the goose down against the block and gave me the axe.”

                A collective “…Oh,” rippled throughout the room.

                “I did it without crying, but just when I thought the misery of the newly made poulterer was over, he handed me the bleeding carcass and told me to gut it.”

                Alasdair suddenly regretted the extra sliver of meat pie.

                “He handed me the knife and told me where and how to cut, but my hands were shaking from the cold and the misery of having killed something that I had looked after, and instead of cutting into the gut area, I sliced the colon open.”

                “Aw, no,” Adaoire guffawed, slapping his knees. “What a Mallacht you made o’ this.”

                “Oh, it is worse. The sludge from the colon seeped out everywhere. I had to wash my hands in frigid water, my father had to cut off the part of the goose I had ruined, and with fingers frozen, I had to thrust my fist into the bird’s body cavity and pull everything out in one piece.”

                “You didn’t, didya, kin,” said Aiden.

                “Oh, no. I missed the lungs entirely, crushed the liver, which went everywhere, and pulled out the bowels in a wretched mess.”

                “She was in the flunters, if I tell you,” Jaicobh simpered, “standin’ there, cryin’ with all the bits in her hands, the gizzards all knotted up, the heart leakin’ on her fingers. I cleaned her up and emptied the rest of the carcass, but then she had to pluck it.”

                “Defeathering the thing was probably the most atrocious part of the whole business. I was wailing away while ripping all the feathers out incorrectly. I cut my fingers, got all the feathers in my mouth and all the poultry dander in my nose.”

                “Got the ague and poulterer’s lung and didn’t eat dinner for a whole week.”

                “And he laughs, of course,” Boudicca exclaimed, pointing to her father. “It was the most traumatic experience of my young life, and I never gutted an animal again, until my mother grew too ill to do it herself.”

                “You couldn’t gut an animal,” said Sheamas, “but you can stab people.”

                “Within the confines of war, and you cannot tell me they did not deserve it. And I didn’t gut them, though they certainly should have deserved it if I had. It is one thing to puncture someone or something and leave it in tact, but it is another thing entirely to cut a neat hole around your enemy’s bottom and pull everything from the inside out between his legs.”

                Alasdair hemmed and shifted in his chair. “Well, I’m certainly glad we had no goose tonight,” said he quickly. “Martje, no goose for Ailineighdaeth this year, please. Cured ham is all we want. Good old Frewyn cured ham. Ham is safe. Yes, it is. And a lean meat too—absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. And there is no pulling anything out from the fundament, hm? Just regular evisceration, thank you.”

                A smile parted Vyrdin’s beard and rounded his hollow cheeks. “Even though I enjoy hearing you wallow in a fit of sarcasm,” said he, with a glint in his eye, “seeing you agitated by something so commonplace as procuring a dinner is all the birthday present I need.”