Apocalypse Cow (3 page)

‘Humans are carnivores, love. A meal isn’t a meal unless it
has
meat in it. Christ, I’d eat you if lentils were the only alternative.’

Fanny ignored the remark. ‘It takes four kilos of grain, a hundred kilos of hay and a hundred thousand litres of water to produce one kilo of beef.’ She jabbed a finger at David’s empty dish. ‘The equivalent of what you’ve just eaten could have fed a family in Africa for weeks.’

‘Bollocks,’ David said sagely. ‘Look at that boy of yours. He looks like a starving Ethiopian, plus he has scurvy. He needs burgers, not grain and hay.’

Geldof, although irked his affliction had been used to illustrate David’s point, salivated at the thought of eating a burger, imagining biting into a thick, juicy lump of meat nestled within a crumbly bun.

‘He gets tofu burgers and is far healthier for it,’ Fanny said.

‘It’s not healthier. It’s a well-known fact vegetarians die young.’

‘Nonsense. Name me just one.’

‘Linda McCartney.’

‘She had breast cancer!’

David shrugged and replied, ‘She probably wouldn’t have got it if she ate meat. Heather Mills then.’

‘She isn’t dead.’

‘No, but she’s only got one leg.’

‘It didn’t fall off because she was a vegan. She got hit by a motorbike.’

‘Well, all that tofu must have affected her peripheral vision. If she’d eaten meat, she’d have seen it coming.’

Fanny harrumphed. ‘Do you have any real examples? Perhaps someone who wasn’t married to Paul McCartney?’

‘Gandhi!’ David exclaimed.

He folded his arms across his chest and nodded.

‘Gandhi?’ Fanny spluttered. ‘He was assassinated. When he was almost eighty.’

‘Well, my point still stands.’

Geldof thought David’s point wasn’t so much standing as lying curled up in a corner, rocking itself and drooling. But David was just winding Fanny up and she, as ever, was falling for it, almost choking on her outrage.

‘You’re talking nonsense,’ Fanny said. ‘We will never kill cows, will we, Geldof?’

He imagined himself in a field, knife in teeth, sneaking up behind an unsuspecting cow. Quick as a flash, he killed and butchered the animal and was soon roasting a huge hunk of meat over an open fire. He almost moaned with pleasure.

‘No, Mum,’ he responded dutifully.

David gestured at the TV. ‘They’ll do you in if they get the chance. Your precious bloody cows killed twenty-three people in that abattoir. Strike first, that’s what I say.’

Fanny looked at the screen as the camera zoomed in on a body bag being slid into the back of an ambulance. She listened to the newsreader recap the story, and then shook her head.

‘You are odious!’ she shouted. ‘How could it be the cows’ fault? Did you expect them to sit still and burn to death?’

‘I’m guessing “yes” would be the wrong answer,’ David said. ‘But that’s what I’m going for. Do I win a tenner?’

‘We’re leaving!’ Fanny announced.

Thank God
, Geldof thought and scuttled off behind his mother.

‘Cheers for dropping by!’ David called after them. ‘Do come again.’

Mary followed them into the hallway and caught hold of Fanny’s sleeve.

‘Fanny, I promise we’ll keep the windows closed when we’re cooking from now on,’ she said quickly. ‘I respect your beliefs and I’ll try not to offend them. But if you keep the noise down it would be appreciated.’

Fanny was silent for a moment, then nodded.

‘I know we have our differences, but we should stick together,’ Mary continued. ‘You know what the rest of the snobs on the street call us: New-age and New-money.’

The sneakiness of Mary’s argument blew Geldof away. There was no better way to heal divisions than by uniting against the common enemy, in this case the staid middle classes who populated the suburb of Bearsden. It was common knowledge that the Peterses’ alternative lifestyle did not sit well with the neighbours, particularly the large and unsightly wind turbine on their roof, and the Alexanders would always be considered working-class oiks trying to rise above their station, no matter how large the house or shiny the car.

Fanny’s lips unpuckered. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have got so angry.’

‘It’s fine. If you have a problem in the future, please come to me.’

Fanny nodded again, her shoulders relaxing, and stepped out onto the path. Just before the door closed behind them, Geldof took one last lungful of the lingering meaty smell. His stomach unleashed a long rumble. The evening’s meal would not be able to tame the monstrous appetite now broiling within him.

‘I’m still disappointed in you,’ Fanny said, although her anger was now half-hearted. ‘I should send you to your room with no dinner.’

Geldof perked up. He would rather go hungry than force the tasteless rice down his throat with the memory of real food still prickling his taste buds. Disappointingly, when they got back into the house, Fanny decided since she had already prepared most of the ingredients it would be a waste if he didn’t eat.

It took over an hour before Geldof could flee to his room, where he planned to tug one off while imagining Mary was punishing him with a light, flirtatious spanking for getting the decimal point in the wrong place in his solution to a particularly hard calculation. Just as he conjured up Mary scribbling the problem on the blackboard, rising up on tiptoes to reveal her stocking tops, his parents’ grunts sounded through the wall – one set high, one set low, in an absurd harmony. Their tantric couplings usually lasted at least two hours, although since his father was fifty, a whole fourteen years older than Fanny, Geldof didn’t know how he had the stamina.

With his parents indulging noisily in the real thing, Geldof couldn’t get his fantasy going. He looked out of the window, hoping Mary would be in the kitchen. Instead he saw David raiding the saucepan and greedily cramming the last few morsels of mince into his mouth. It was not quite the erotic image he was searching for. He sat down heavily at his desk and switched on the computer. With his fantasy ruined, the only thing left was recreational maths. He logged on to one of his favourite websites and tried to lose himself in formulae as his parents’ bedstead knocked monotonously against the wall. It was going to be a long evening.

3

Tip for twat

Lesley McBrien, journalist extraordinaire, if she did say so herself, laid her fingers on the keyboard and prepared to start typing.

The key to a good article
, she thought,
is a strong start that captures the reader’s imagination
.

She hammered out,
Colin Drummond is a twat
.

She leaned back and admired her work. Short, sharp and to the point. But it didn’t tell the whole story. Lesley half stood and peered across the cubicle jungle of the
Glasgow Tribune
office, where Post-it notes clung to partition walls like vines, phones trilled like tropical birds and journalists hunched over their keyboards like the hairless monkeys they generally were. Colin sat in the office of Alexandra McMillan, the news editor, one leg slung casually over the arm of the chair. Alexandra said something and Colin threw his head back to let out a laugh so loud and brazen in its bum-lickery it resonated through the office window.

Colin Drummond is a smug, ingratiating, self-serving twat who
should
be strung up by his tiny little dick and left to twist gently in the breeze
, Lesley typed.

She sighed and pressed
delete
before anybody saw she was writing rude, albeit true, things about the
Glasgow Tribune
’s star reporter. The jolly conversation in Alexandra’s office was no doubt linked to the big scoop Colin had been alluding to all morning. It was something to do with what happened at the abattoir yesterday not being what it seemed, but Colin was being infuriatingly coy about it.

Unfortunately there was no denying Colin was a talented twat, and she was jealous. Lesley had worked at the
Tribune
for three years, arriving straight from journalism school with visions of spending a few months at the bottom of the food chain before her talent shone through and propelled her to the top. Yet after three years of toil, not once had she made the front page. Not once had she interviewed a mysterious source in the halls of power. Not once had she taken a minister out to a trendy bar in order to tease out sensitive information and knock back as many bottles of Smirnoff Ice on expenses as physically possible.

No, Lesley was stuck asking the grieving relatives of car-crash victims how they felt in the immediate aftermath of their loss, and often getting an earful of abuse for her trouble. She was the one sent out to shiver on Sauchiehall Street’s pedestrian precinct on bleak winter mornings to pluck vox pop quotes from the scurrying stream of office workers and shoppers. Basically, she was the mug who did all the shitty jobs considered beneath her more senior colleagues.

Lesley blew a wisp of hair out of her eye. If only Colin would suffer an accident: just a little mishap that would render him unable to write and allow her to take over his juicy
gigs
. Perhaps if she tinkered with the shredder she could arrange for him to lose most of his fingers. That would do it. She closed her eyes and enjoyed a pleasant daydream, in which Colin staggered in a wobbly circle, spraying the Journalist of the Year award perched rather too prominently on his desk with blood from his stumps.

She was still immersed in her fantasy when a hand fell on her shoulder. An involuntary shriek escaped her lips and she opened her eyes to see Colin leaning over her, his fingers unfortunately all still attached.

‘Hard at work?’ he asked.

Lesley shrugged him off and leaned over her keyboard, silently thanking her lucky stars she had hit
delete
. ‘Just thinking about how to start my story.’

Colin looked at the blank screen. ‘I would help, but I’m going for a working lunch. I’ve forwarded my calls to you. Anything urgent comes in, give me a tinkle.’

‘I’m not your bloody secretary,’ she snapped.

‘That’s true,’ Colin replied. ‘You can’t type fast enough. Cheerio!’

He zipped off before Lesley could respond, his fifties-throwback quiff dangling before him.

Working lunch, my arse
, Lesley thought. Colin was en route to the pub for a few beers and a game of pool with the features editor. She’d seen them hunched over the table on many occasions as she hurried round to Pret A Manger in the pissing rain for a sandwich to eat at her desk.

She was just about to go over to Colin’s desk and reverse his mouse controls in a petty act of revenge when her phone rang. She snatched it up, convinced it was for Colin. Nobody ever called her at work.

‘Sorry, the twat is out brown-nosing at the moment. Please leave a message and I’ll make sure it doesn’t get to him,’ she intoned in her politest telephone voice.

After a brief pause a digitized voice began to speak.

‘Mr Drummond, you may like to know at least part of the cock-and-bull story you are being fed is true,’ said the caller, who sounded a lot like Stephen Hawking. ‘A virus was let loose in that abattoir, turning those cows into killing machines, but terrorists are not responsible.’

Lesley froze. What was this? Virus? Terrorists? Killing-machine cows? This sounded like a tip-off and somehow the caller hadn’t realized she wasn’t Colin. She stayed perfectly still, not wanting even to breathe in case she gave away her identity.

‘Do not attempt to speak,’ the voice continued. ‘This is an automated recording, created and broadcast through a computer with a time delay. I am already on my way out of the country. Once I tell you what I know, you will understand why. If you have a recording device, I suggest you turn it on now.’

The voice paused. Lesley scrabbled in the desk drawer for her voice recorder, which was buried beneath half-empty boxes of cigarettes, tatty old business cards and a dusty framed picture of her and her father Charles standing outside the
Glasgow Tribune
offices. She got it out just in time and managed to press
record
on her third excited stab.

‘What you are about to hear is a conversation, recorded yesterday evening, between Professor Jonathan Martin, a renowned virologist, his colleague Professor Constance Jones, and the head of security at the facility where the leaked bio-weapon that caused the carnage was produced, one
Alastair
Brown,’ the voice explained before cutting off.

Almost immediately, a human voice crackled down the line.

‘What’s the latest, Alastair?’ the man Lesley assumed to be Professor Martin asked in a plummy, slightly lisping voice.

‘The good news is the fire destroyed most of the evidence,’ Brown responded. ‘The bad news is the paramedics spotted us taking off, and the fire services are already talking about arson. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, as we can just pressure them to shut up. But one of them has already blabbed to Drummond at the
Tribune
about fishy goings-on. He’s sniffing around. My preference would be to kill him, although that might be a little obvious.’

No it wouldn’t
, Lesley thought.

‘You’re saying the stampede story won’t hold?’