AT THE BUTCHER'S

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 523, 1 July 1949, Page 8

AT THE BUTCHER'S

(Written for "The

Listener’ by

M.

B.

| TT’S early, 8.30, and the street is alive with people, bustling to work. But inside the butcher’s shop the shoppers ate standing in long, still lines. They move, but imperceptibly as a glacier, towards the counter at the far end of the shop, where the assistants, strong silent men immaculately collared and tied beneath already soiled overalls of

white and butcher-boy blue, work at furious tempo, In her cage, remote and uncontaminated except by filthy lucre, sits the cashier, watching, with the calm of a tricoteuse the savage swipings that bring unwanted end-pieces tumbling into the scrapbaskets. This is a scene that Cairncross might have painted, may still paint. Against the blue-and-white tiled walls glows the rich red and cream of the ‘carcasses, through which the blue-clad butchers shoulder their way as unconcernedly as through a curtain. Ranged along one wall are the deep trays of oddments, the cream crochet-work of the tripe, the mounds of kidneys lightly sprinkled with iridescent frost, the grey-blue of the neatly folded tongues, the amorphous pink of mince, the glistening heaps of white sausages or red saveloys. By contrast the long lines of shoppers, bovine in their placidity, appear drab. The place is strangely silent, perhaps in tribute to the presence of so much death. Only the butchers themselves make their cheerful occupational noises of clashing steels, rustling paper, slamming of meat on to scales, And every so often the mechanical bone-cutter raises a shrill hysterical squeal, But all this exuberance proceeds from the men behind the counter, at ease in their accustomed environment. From the customers there is only ‘the shuffling of sawdustmuffled feet, the apologetic rustle of a morning paper, the murmured con:sultation between client and butcher when queue’s end is finally reached. HIS is no place for the epicure, the ditherer, or the nark. The butcher’s "Howzat, lady?" is as automatic as a wicket keeper’s and any attempt to follow the joint on its lightning course from chopping table to customer’s nose to scales to wrapping paper needs an eye as well-trained as Lenglen’s. There is no excuse for hesitation since the long wait before the couriter has given plenty of opportunity for wit-gathering as well as wool-gathering. ‘ \ _ Yet when the crucial moment comes, and there is nothing between me and the butcher’s interrogation but a trayfull of cutlets, doubts assail me. I had thought of mutton, but that was a nice piece of topside the woman ahead of me got. And perhaps I’d better have something for Saturday lunch?

The butcher’s patience is horrible to see. Fortunately I cannot see the people behind me. "Pork," I mouth, desperately, "For roasting. About 5/-." "Leg or loin?" "Leg," I guess, "You won’t get a leg for five bob," says the butcher, lunging for one, giving it a savage swipe at the ankle (l.b.w.) and hurling it to the scales. The little foot hangs pathetically over the edge. "Eightandfour." He sweeps it to the wrapping paper and muffles the pathetic outline. "What," I ask desperately, "am I to do with the foot?" "Anything you like, lady," says the butcher. "Next please." Out on the footpath with my bundle I decide, as every Friday, that I shall embrace vegetarianism. But I know very well that the lovely week-end smell of roasting meat, the sweet sizzling of the oven, will undo me. Perhaps the solution is the small butcher’s shop, where they keep almost everything, particularly the lamb’s fry, under the counter and rely for decorative effect on a few neatly cylindrical ssirloins suitably smothered in parsley.