Let's Not Milk It

It was Colin who started it. He offered to make everyone bacon cobs for breakfast, even shouting upstairs for the boys' benefit, to which Gabe and Lukas confirmed their interest in the offer. Colin shouted three times for a reply from Andrew, but of course recieved nothing in return.

We were all munching down on dead pig and bread when Andrew made his first flounce of the day into the kitchen, making a frowning deal of having to fight through an atmosphere of cooked meat, and began to rummage in the cupboard for a suitable cereal (he's currently on one of his muesli-kicks).

Colin said Aye up Andy, didn't you hear me shout? 'fraid you've missed out on a bacon buttie, but there's some bacon left if you want one.

Lukas laughed, squirting ketchup out the side of his mouth, informing Colin that Andrew was a vegetarian. Colin frowned for a moment as though processing this information, then his features cleared. Oh yeah, he said. I'd forgotten, chap. Sorry. I thought this might be the end of it but Colin added: But it's a bit nuts, if you ask me.

Andrew responded by slamming the box of muesli down on the counter. We all jumped a little, with Colin making a play of going wide-eyed with a 'was it something I said?' look aimed at my younger pair, who both giggled. I know what Colin was doing - he was playing using Andrew as a tool to enhance his status with Gabe and Lukas; and I did not approve. Again, I hoped this was going to be the end of things, but it wasn't.

Andrew moved over the fridge, took out the milk and doused his muesli in it. Colin snorted, then looked down at his plate.

And so Andrew punctured the air with the first word any of us had heard him utter for nearly three days, and in a voice spilling over with wrath:

What?

Colin looked up again, and shook his head. And said It's nothing.

But Andrew insisted. No, he said. If you've something to say, just say it.

So Colin launched: You're a vegetarian, but you drink milk?

And Andrew countered, yeah, I drink milk. What's the problem? You don't kill a cow to get milk from it, do you?

Colin continued, stifling a giggle: That is so like people of your age. You have your oh-so-important agendas but you never think things through. To give milk, a dairy cow has to be kept pregnant? Right? Have you thought of that?

Andrew stumbled out, so? I could tell by his voice he knew he was likely to be out-smarted here; a bit like a dairy cow to the slaughter...

Colin: So want do you think happens? Is Daisy allowed to roam freely around the hills and dales until she bumps into the bull she can call her one true love, or does a farmer take a huge metal syringe full of bull-spunk and shove it up her vagina?

I perhaps should have interjected at this point, but I was quite interested in what Colin was saying, and I thought it may serve a purpose for Andrew to hear this. So I kept quiet - as did Andrew, although we was growing paler by the second.

Colin: And when Daisy has her calf what do you think happens to it? Any moo-cow-mother-baby bonding? Nope - Junior gets taken away the instant he is born, more often than to become veal. But then at least that's quick, poor mummy spends her entire life in a tiny pen with the milking machine stuck to her udder. To get more milk, the farmer uses artificial light to shorten the day and screw up their body clocks. Then when their udders are old and wizened and there ain't no more milk coming out of them it's a bolt through the head and Ermantrude's dead. But you keep dousing your corn flakes in milk, Andy, and keep giving me dirty looks because I do what comes natural to me and eat meat. And I have milk in my coffee, I eat cheese and spread my toast with butter and I am deluded enough to think I look good in leather.

By now, each and every capillary on Andrew's face had squeezed all the blood away. As we all sat uncomfortably in the crystal-clear silence, Andrew quietly put the milk down on the counter and without even replacing the top, glided out of the room, abandoning his muesli.

Colin broke the spreading silence by declaring he was going to visit the local driving range and would anyone like to come with him? Lukas jumped at the chance before remembering his arm was still in cast (which - hurrah - is scheduled to come off on Tuesday), but I told him he could go along and watch at least. Gabe was less enthusiastic, so I persuaded him a bit of fresh air would do him good. Colin said the invitation extended to me, but I lied and said I had a lot of office work to catch up on.

Once the house was free of Colin and his two biggest fans, I crept upstairs to see how Andrew was. I knocked on his door but got no answer, so broke a golden rule (again!) and stepped into the room. Andrew was lying on his bed, his face to the wall. I sat down on the end of the bed, placing one hand on his right calf and giving it a gentle squeeze, to which he didn't respond. I really wanted to say something to him, but my mind remained a complete blank, and I couldn't think of any opening gambit that would have been suitable. So I just sat like that for a good five minutes, before I got up and left his room.

I didn't see Colin, Lukas or Gabriel until the early afternoon, with Colin moaning that one the last swing he did he succeeded in popping his shoulder out for half-a-second, which had hurt 'worse than having the Lord's Prayer tattooed onto your scrotum'. I don't believe in karma nor cosmic ordering. Or at least I don't most of the time.