the next year, so they turned their minds to other food. There were many tasty birds to catch, like the pea dove, the ground dove and the white-winged and barby doves. These birds were easy to pluck and clean and Mama was always pleased when the boys brought them home. She cooked them over a raw fire, either pierced with a stick and rubbed with salt and seasoning, or fried with garlic, onions and peppers.
At the fine news that Joe was coming, Pops killed a couple of chickens. A few days later, he killed a couple of ducks and a big fat pig. Finally, they slaughtered two goats and invited all the neighbours round, saying Christmas had come early that year.
The day before Christmas Eve there was a big cleanup, and all the neighbours went home to get ready for their own family feasts. Joe arrived that night. Carl and Pupatee were very excited to see this brother who was like a stranger, and Mama and Pops were full of happiness at the return of their eldest son. The house seemed almost fit to burst with anticipation. When Joe walked through the door he didn’t let them down. He was not a big man, but he was dressed in slick English clothes, and when he spoke his voice was high and his English perfect. Pupatee had to concentrate to understand him when he talked.
Joe had gone to England many years before. He lived in London with his wife and children, and had a job as a van driver for British Rail. He seemed very old to Pupatee – he was, in fact, old enough to be his father. Carl and Pupatee were very proud to have such a big brother. They stayed up as late as they could listening to the talk until Mama noticed the time and sent them up to bed.
The next morning, the rooster woke the house with a triple cock-a-doodle-doo alarm. Mama and Pops were dressed straight away and headed through the door to get their daily chores done early. Carl and Pupatee were washed and dressed early too. They helped Mama light the log fire and then went to help Pops milk the cows. When they brought the milk back to the kitchen, Mama asked Pops if he was going to kill another goat to celebrate Joe’s arrival.
‘Wha? A little goat?’ Pops replied. ‘Wha you ah talk seh woman, we son come home from faran country and you ah tell me fe kill just one little goat! Oh no, we ah go kill one fat bull fe him. When him ah go back we can kill one little goat, yes, but me would be too shame fe kill just a goat fe him arrival!’
Mama was laughing, and Carl and Pupatee looked at each other in amazement. A fat bull! That meant pure beef for Christmas!
‘Carl, Pupatee.’
‘Yes, Pops.’
‘Go get de youngest, fattest bull and bring him down to de slaughter post.’
‘Yes, Pops.’
Just then, Joe walked into the kitchen and wished everybody a good morning.
‘Ho, you get up already,’ said Pops. ‘Good, you can help me kill one fat bull we killing fe you welcoming home,’ said Pops.
‘That sounds like my kind of talk,’ said Joe.
Mama was still smiling with delight as Carl and Pupatee went for the fatted bull while Joe and Pops got rope and a big sharp knife, and when the boys returned with a young beefy bull, Pops and Joe tied it to the slaughtering post.
Before they could begin, Mama called everyone for breakfast. They all sat around the big table in the kitchen and ate their bellies full of fresh hot chocolate, saltfish fritters, fried dumplings, salt-fried pork with callaloo greens and two big half-ripe roasted breadfruits as extras. While Mama started cleaning up in the kitchen, Pops and Joe took a bottle of white rum and two coconuts with milk inside for a chaser, and went and sat in the sun near the bull at the slaughtering post.
Carl and Pupatee were left in the kitchen to help clean up and after a while an argument started. It was over something trivial, a fishing weight, but soon they were readying for a fight. First Carl hit Pupatee, and just as Pupatee drew back his fist to hit him back, Joe walked into the kitchen. He needed a file to sharpen the knife that was to be used to kill the fatted bull.
‘What!’ cried Joe, taking off his belt and giving Pupatee a few whacks. ‘How dare you hit your elder brother. Don’t you ever do that again.’
Tears poured down Pupatee’s face. It wasn’t the pain, but the shock of being hit by his brother Joe, who he so idolised.
‘Wha wrong with you bwoy, wha you ah cry for?’ Pops asked.
‘I caught him throwing punches at his elder brother and gave him a slight belting,’ Joe said.
Pops laughed and Pupatee turned round to see a smile on Joe’s face, which only put him in an even hotter temper.
‘Pupatee, wha you ah cry like a girl for?’ said Mama when she saw him coming towards her, sniffing away.
‘Nothing.’
‘Come, me comb you head fe you, son.’
Pupatee went to her. Mama’s warmth was comforting, and he felt better after she had oiled and combed his hair. You look nice now, Pupatee,’ she said. He smiled.
Outside, Pops and Joe were tying up the bull so that it would not be a danger during its slaughtering. The post was an old stump of a tree, still attached to its roots. After a while the bull was trussed to the post by its horns, and it looked fierce no longer, but frightened. It mooed and tried to pull itself free, but its struggles were useless.
Carl appeared with a large container to catch the blood for the dogs. Pops offered Joe the big slaughtering knife to do the killing, but Joe refused. Pops smiled. ‘Faran country changed you a lot, son, you used to love doing de killing years ago.’
‘Can Pupatee do it, Pops?’ Pupatee said. They all turned to see him watching them from the veranda.
‘You still a pickney, bwoy, dis a man work.’ Pops laughed, then he looked at him and said, ‘Pupatee, you no remember de time when you kill Massah Tom little pig?’
He did remember. An animal had been raiding one of Pops’s far-off vegetable fields every night and Pops had grown so weary that he had offered his sons a pile of money if they caught it and killed it. So one day, Gamper and Carl packed a tent, food, knives, cutlasses and machetes and walked to this far-off field. They set up their tent and slept at the spot where they expected the intruder would try to get into the field. That night, it showed up just as they hoped. It turned out to be a very large sow, bigger even than them. The boys were frightened, but they wanted the money even more than they were afraid of the harm that sow might do them. So Gamper charged at the sow and dived on it with a long sharp knife. The sow put up a strong fight, trying to escape from Gamper and Carl. Even after its throat had been cut, it stumbled several yards before it finally fell down and lay still.
Mama and Pops had made much of Gamper and Carl, giving them their money and praising them to the skies. So when, several months later, Pupatee came across a piglet, he pulled out his knife and killed it. But no one had told him to kill this piglet, and it wasn’t even trespassing, so instead of getting a hero’s welcome, Pupatee got only a good beating.
‘Pupatee! Pupatee?’
‘Yeah, Pops?’
‘You deaf?’
He shook himself out of his trance. Joe and Carl tied a rope to the back legs of the bull and Pops took the knife and pulled it across the underside of the bull’s neck, cutting right through and almost taking its head off. The blood gushed out and fell into the waiting
